Methods and Practices in Physics

Abstract

Given the difficulty to draw a line between science and non-science (the demarcation problem), or even to define a unifying “scientific method” which is common across science and only science, the turn to the study of methods and practices of science (or physics) is an obvious and promising place to start. Research in physics education reveals that the actual methods and practices employed in physics research are only superficially represented in the classroom. Initially, these problems were often framed as a misrepresentation of the “history of physics.” In this chapter, we briefly summarize the demarcation problem and trace the origin of the debate on the use (and abuse) of history in physics teaching as it applies to our understanding today. Within the more recent research on science education these issues are part of the debate on how to integrate the “nature of science” and scientific inquiry into science teaching. Thus, the framing of this problem expands by including insights from, e.g., philosophy, anthropology, and sociology of science. Physics education has made significant progress in identifying a variety of teaching objectives and methods in order to foster student's understanding of the nature of science and scientific inquiry, i.e., the actual practices and methods of scientific research. We summarize some of the main works in the field and provide some reflection on the direction of future research.