Gender motivational gap and contribution of different teaching approaches to female students' motivation to learn physics.

This research focuses on potential gender differences in motivation to learn Physics with the aim to determine the weakest female motivational components to learn Physics and the contribution of different teaching approaches (using real and virtual experiments) on those components and motivation for learning Physics in general. These two approaches were chosen as the most commonly used approaches in physics but without clear compared indication on females' motivation. The standardized questionnaire SMTSL (Student's Motivation towards Science Learning) is used for the measurements. The results show that for female students the weakest motivational components to learn Physics are the importance of Physics as a science and self-efficacy. Virtual experiments contribute more to females' motivation to learn Physics than applying real experiments. The female students who used real experiments show fear of being laughed at by their male peers and express doubt in their self-knowledge. Although the applied approaches cause some improvements in female students' self-efficacy, they are not statistically significant. Research results suggest that teachers need to apply such teaching approaches that engage girls and encourage their learning and development in order to improve their self-efficacy and other motivational components.

Cherenkov Radiation Detection on a LS Counter for 226Ra Determination in Water and Its Comparison with Other Common Methods.

Reliable determination of 226Ra content in drinking water, surface water and groundwater is required for radiological health-risk assessment of populations and radiation-dose calculations after ingestion and inhalation. This study aimed to determine 226Ra presence in the untreated water samples on a liquid scintillation counter via Cherenkov radiation detection. Cherenkov counting is a faster, simpler, less expensive technique than other commonly used methods for 226Ra determination. Step-by-step optimization of this technique on the Quantulus detector is presented in this paper. Improvement of detection limit/efficiency in the presence of sodium salicylate was investigated in this study. The main parameters of the method obtained were detection efficiency 15.87 (24)% and detection limit 0.415 Bq/L achieved for 1000 min of counting in 20 mL of sample volume. When 1 g of sodium salicylate was added, efficiency increased to 38.1 (5)%, with a reduction in the detection limit to 0.248 Bq/L for 500 min of counting. A satisfactory precision level of Cherenkov counting was obtained, the results deviating between 5% and 20% from reference values. The precision and accuracy of the Cherenkov counting technique were compared to liquid scintillation counting (EPA Method 913.0 for radon determination) and gamma spectrometry (the direct method for the untreated water samples on HPGe spectrometer). An overview of the advantages/disadvantages of each technique is elaborated in this paper.