NEPHEWS – the Neutrons and Photons Elevating Worldwide Science – is an Horizon Europe Co-funded project-based access program targeting new and non-expert users and user communities, driven by the neutron and photon European user communities [1]. It delivers access to the world-class collective of Europe’s premiere open advanced neutron, synchrotron and free-electron laser complementary...
The study presents a comprehensive data-driven analysis of student participation in national high school physics and mathematics competitions in Macedonia over the recent years. According to official datasets collected, we examine participation rates, performance trends, gender distribution, and international achievements. The analysis highlights significant patterns, including regional...
The primary goal of this work was to create an experimental setup for an easily feasible demonstration of Fresnel–Arago laws and the realization of a laboratory exercise using red and green laser light. Modern theoretical explanations of the interference of polarized light use complex mathematical apparatus for their derivation, with which many students are not acquainted. On the other hand,...
The paper reports results from a project designed to investigate the difficulties that sixty-four undergraduate students experienced while learning to write lab reports after having performed lab experiments. The participants had the opportunity to design and perform experiments in their own design (without being given guidelines). At the same time, they were giving feedback in the form of...
Abstract: Technical and technological innovations are increasingly finding their application in modern education, making it more attractive and economically accessible. Namely, especially in nuclear physics, instruments can be extremely expensive and very sensitive, which makes it significantly difficult for schools to use them [1]. Also, schools cannot own radioactive sources, which is an...
A discrepant event is a demonstration or phenomenon that produces an unexpected outcome, for example, an object that appears to be rolling uphill. The purpose of this research paper is to study the effect of such phenomena on the learning process, to determine whether they can improve students’ understanding of a certain concept.
In this study, the learning subject proposed is the center...
Difficulties in understanding concepts of kinematics are widespread among students at various educational levels as documented in physics educational research. Also, students find it challenging to connect the concepts of motion with equations and graphs that describe these concepts. Such difficulties often originate from intuitive understanding, shaped by their everyday experiences, which can...
Physics education across the Balkan region is confronted with persistent and complex challenges that affect both the quality of teaching and student engagement. Despite being a foundational discipline within the natural sciences, physics attracts a critically low number of students to pursue it further in higher education. In most Balkan countries, fewer than 10% of secondary school graduates...
In response to declining student interest in physics and STEM fields, particularly among girls, the pioneering initiative Youth@STEM4SF (Youth at STEM for Sustainable Future) [1,2,3] developed with the international multidisciplinary community, was launched as Swiss pilot in 2023 under the auspices of the UNESCO International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development. Developed in...
The paper addresses the issue of mechanical representation of relative motions without direct reference to an inertial reference system. Even though classical mechanics states that it is not possible to find an inertial reference frame, relative measurements are used to determine the mechanical behaviour of celestial bodies with very small dimensions compared to the distances between them....
We present a 3D simulator developed using the Ursina Engine, inspired by sandbox-style games like Minecraft. The simulator incorporates core principles of special relativity—such as time dilation, length contraction, and the relativistic Doppler effect. It is designed as PoV game, in which
both the player and the surrounding objects can move; this allows phenomena as the Terrell rotation [1],...
Over the past two decades, Albania has seen a significant decline in interest in studying physics among primary and secondary school students. Physics, once considered a prestigious discipline, studied by the best and offering an intellectually rewarding career, is increasingly perceived by students as a tedious, highly abstract, and difficult subject that offers no prestige or income today....
