Describing the cognitive landscape in learning and teaching about forces

Abstract

This study focuses on student and in-service primary teachers learning about balanced and unbalanced forces in a range of contexts and identifies significant features of the learning process from the learners' perspectives. It describes how students are able to apply key ideas about forces from their own learning about floating and sinking to a range of contexts including structures and aspects of motion. In exploring how understanding is constructed important implications are raised with respect to the pedagogic knowledge required of teachers in the Initial Teacher Training National Curriculum in the UK.