The Effect of a History-Based Course in Optics on Students’ Views about Science

Abstract

In light of the convincing claims extolling the multifaceted merit of the “genetic” (historical) approach in designing learning materials (Matthews 1994), we developed an experimental course in optics. We tested the new materials and determined their effectiveness in a year long course given in several 10th grade high school classes. A special feature, which soundly contrasted our course from a typical one, was its essential incorporation of historical contents: the ideas, views and conceptions which constituted the early understanding of light and vision. In this report, we present that part of the assessment which concerns the course's impact on the students’ views about science and some related technological and cultural issues. In our analysis, we used a special hierarchical organization to represent pertinent data. Strong differences were found between the views elicited in the experimental group and parallel data regarding students in the control group. In our view, this demonstrated the advantage of utilizing historical materials in an aspect which is additional to our first intention – to improve students’ disciplinary knowledge. Such materials naturally address issues of much broader general interest, appropriate for physics education as opposed to physics training. Touching on a variety of features of science the materialspositively effect students’ views about science.