Ebook: Research on Physics Education

Physics Education research is a young field with a strong tradition in many countries. However, it has only recently received full recognition of its specificity and relevance for the growth and improvement of the culture of Physics in contemporary Society for different levels and populations.

This may be due on one side to the fact that teaching, therefore education, is part of the job of university researchers (whatever their research field) and it has often been implicitly assumed (not always correctly) that the competences required for good research activity also guarantee good teaching practice.

On the other side, and perhaps more important, is the fact that the problems to be afforded in doing research in education are complex problems that require a knowledge base not restricted to the disciplinary physics knowledge but enlarged to include cognitive science, communication science, history and philosophy.

This complexity is partially conveyed in the organization of this School. The themes of the lectures presented in the Course and reproduced in these Proceedings look at some of the facets of the problem by considering the interplay of the development of cognitive models for learning Physics (Redish, diSessa, Hammer, Otero) with some reflections on the Physics contents for contemporary and future society (Vicentini, Guidoni) with the analysis of teaching strategies (Viennot, Mestre, Thornton, Heron) and the role of experiments (Euler, Pintó), the issue of assessment (Black) and cultural aspects (Grimellini).

Information was also given on the organizations involved in connecting various aspects of Physics Education: the International Commission on Physics Education (Sahm), the European Physical Society (Tibell), the European Physics Education Network (Ferdinande).

During the School a poster session was organized and some of the students presented their work. A small number of the poster presentations is also reproduced in the Proceedings and we end with a report on the Round Table final discussion where the facets of the problem were critically examined in the perspective of the convergence of future research lines.

We thank the Italian Physical Society for giving us the opportunity to present to Physicists at large our research field and we hope that some of the results will be useful to them in their university teaching.

E. F. (JOE) Redish and M. Vicentini

1. Motivation and introduction

2. The starting point: a foothold in neuroscience

3. Cognitive mechanisms: association and control

4. Knowledge and knowledge structure

5. Epistemology and expectations

6. Implications

7. Conclusions

8. Glossary

1. Introduction

2. Some reasons for a research on new ways of organizing physics knowledge

3. Examples of proposal of changes in the organization of physics knowledge

4. Factors that influence the answers to the questions: the mental representation of researchers and teachers about physics

5. Proposals for discussion

Introduction

The purposes of assessment and testing

Reviewing research

Outcomes of the review

Conclusion

The starting point

The concept

The learning gains

The findings: how change can happen

Reflections: teachers, students and learning

Motivation and self-esteem

Summative tests

Conclusion

Introduction

Quality in assessment

Criterion and norm-referencing

Differences between formative and summative

Lessons from elsewhere?

Understanding limitations

1. The problem

2. Why is attributing knowledge so difficult?

3. Steps we can take

4. Introduction to the study

5. Ioannides and Vosniadou's work

6. A framework for specification

7. The extension study

8. Results of the extended analysis

9. Discussion

1. Introduction

2. Theory sketch: knowledge reorganization and coordination

3. The data corpus

4. Coordinating aspects of the law of large numbers

5. Conclusion

1. Introduction

2. An orienting framework

3. Principles and examples

4. Summary

1. The emerging knowledge society: challenges of global change

2. Problems of physics education

3. The role of experiments, cognitive activation of students, and authentic learning experiences

4. When do students learn from experiments? 3 case studies

5. From concrete to abstract: rethinking the role of experiments, models and creative processes

6. Linking the links: an experiment to transform thinking

7. Meaningful active physics: an open-ended program

Foreword

Part I. Some examples of teaching-understanding problems

Part II. Proposed curricular patterns

Part III. Some relevant (research-critical) cognition aspects

1. Introduction

2. Classroom examples of children's inquiries

3. The beginnings of scientific expertise

1. Introduction

2. University student difficulties

3. Productive transitions

4. Questions for further research

1. Introduction

2. From unitary to manifold

3. Elementary science education

1. Introduction

2. An experimental approach to physics education research

3. An experimentalist's perspective on the role of theory in physics education research

4. Conclusion

1. Introduction

2. Investigating student understanding

3. Designing instructional materials

4. Assessing the effectiveness of instruction

5. Conclusion

1. Introduction

2. Overview of relevant literature

3. Study 1: problem posing

4. Study 2: the interaction among context, beliefs, expectations, and observations for the motions of ballsmoving on tracks

5. General discussion

1. Introduction

2. Socio-cultural theory

3. Research method and data sources

4. Research results and analysis

5. Summary and discussion

1. Introduction

2. An alternative history of cognitive science

3. Mediated action

4. Tools, artifacts, culture and language

5. Research method and data sources

6. Research results and analysis

7. Discussion

1. Introduction

2. A challenging opportunity for change when experimental work is questioned. The case of physics laboratory at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

3. Getting professional competence

4. What are some practicals like? Task analysis

5. The non-written instructions in the laboratories

6. Open or closed practical work

7. Other realities concerning our laboratory work

8. The presence of ICTs in the labs

9. Final remarks

1. Introduction

2. Lines of attention and critical details

3. Friction and propulsion: the genesis of a sequence

4. Illustration of the benefits

5. Reconsidering the sequence: just a successful try? Concluding remarks

1. Introduction

2. Doppler effect: main ideas and students difficulties

3. Doppler effect with graphs

4. Linking Doppler effect and Romer's discovery

5. Elements of evaluation

6. Concluding remarks

1. Introduction

2. Students' conceptual progress: different types of data

3. Question dependence: a constitutive aspect of students' reasoning

4. Conceptual profiles

5. The teacher: an essential factor

6. Recapitulation and concluding remarks

1. EUPEN

2. The Bologna process

3. EUPEN and Tuning

4. EUPEN and TEEP

Introduction

1. Physics as Culture

2. Putting Science into Culture

3. Concluding remarks and open questions

4. Path A: Space as frame of reference

5. Path B: Space as cognitive question