High School Physics Classes Research Articles

More than misconceptions: Multiple perspectives on student knowledge and reasoning, and an appropriate role for education research

This article analyzes an excerpt of a discussion from a high school physics class from several different perspectives on students’ knowledge and reasoning, illustrating a range in what an instructor might perceive in students’ work and take as tasks for instruction. It suggests a view of current education research as providing perspectives to expand, refine, and support instructors’ perceptions and judgment, rather than as providing definitive principles or proven methods.

Misconceptions or P-Prims: How May Alternative Perspectives of Cognitive Structure Influence Instructional Perceptions and Intentions

The notion that students come to science courses with misconceptions has become quite widely accepted by those who follow or participate in education research. DiSessa and his colleagues (diSessa, 1988, 1993; Smith, diSessa, & Roschelle, 1993/1994) have challenged the theoretical and empirical validity of this perspective and offered an alternative account of cognitive structure in phenomenological primitives or p-prims. The purpose of this article is to further clarify and contrast the two accounts: in particular, to consider their utility and generativity as conceptual tools for teachers. How may each perspective influence instructional perceptions and intentions? The article recounts a discussion about forces and motion from a high-school physics class, analyzes how a teacher may perceive students' participation in that discussion from either perspective, and considers what, based on those perceptions, the teacher may see as tasks for instruction.

Student Inquiry in a Physics Class Discussion

There is a long, rich history of arguments for the importance of involving students in a process of inquiry. For many instructors, however, promoting student inquiry is a difficult agenda to pursue for two reasons. First, there is often tension for instructors between concerns for this agenda and more traditional concerns for the correctness and completeness of students' understanding. Second, it is not easy to recognize when productive student inquiry is taking place. For a teacher in class, what is valuable about the students' participation at any given moment may not be as obvious as what is flawed and ambiguous in their arguments. For this article, I analyze a short excerpt from a high school physics class discussion to consider the value of the students' work as inquiry and to illustrate a teacher's negotiation of the tension between inquiry and traditional content-oriented concerns. In this way, I try to discover the beginnings of science in what the students say and do, rather than to apply criteria from a particular model of scientific reasoning. This exploration for students' knowledge and abilities is offered both as an approach to research on student inquiry and as a mode of instructional practice to support that inquiry.

Epistemological considerations in teaching introductory physics

AbstractEpistemological beliefs are beliefs about knowledge and learning. In a physics class, for example, some students might believe learning consists of memorizing facts and formulas provided by the teacher, whereas others might believe it entails applying and modifying their conceptualizations of phenomena. This article explores, in the context of a debate about velocity from the author's high school physics class, how a perspective of students as having epistemological beliefs might influence a teacher's perceptions of students and intentions for instruction. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Distributed Versus Massed Practice in High School Physics

An analysis of the effects of distributed practice in physics was undertaken. The subjects were 41 students, nearly equal numbers of males and females, in two suburban high school physics classes. All students were exposed to both massed and distributed practice on two different physics topics. The interaction of practice type with time and previous physics achievement were evaluated using a repeated measures MANOVA. A significant difference in achievement at the 0.01 level was found between the group which used distributed practice and the group which used massed practice in favor of distributed practice; the effect was stable with time, and the treatment was of benefit to both high and low achievers. The results suggest that using distributed practice in high school physics classrooms can lead to higher student achievement in physics.

Recruiting students for high-school physics classes

Recruiting students for high-school physics classes

The media effects question: “Unresolvable” or asking the right question

ate his point. The first is ThinkerTools (White, 1984, 1993) and the Jasper Woodbury Series (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1992). These two studies, however, suggest that the issue is not reframing Clark's question, but asking a different question. According to Kozma, ThinkerTools allows students to manipulate computer objects that behave according to rules derived from Newtonian mechanics. The study Kozma cites (White, 1993) compared sixth-grade students who used ThinkerTools to a similar group of sixth graders studying a standard curriculum unit on inventions. The experimental group was also compared to a high school physics class who had studied Newtonian mechanics using traditional methods and a high school class who had not studied the topic. The results support the effectiveness of ThinkerTools to teach Newtonian mechanics as measured by a posttest. The study, however, is inappropriately designed for interpretation as a basic research study to provide evidence for the contribution of the media to learning. Kozma suggests that it was the ability of the computer to present motion and react to the learners' input. One must ask, however, what would have been the result if the instructor had taken the

The Effect of Two Remediation Methods in High School Physics Classes in Nigeria

AbstractThis study examined the effects of teacher-directed and student-oriented remediation methods in high school physics classes in Nigeria. Students (N = 121) from three Nigerian high schools were assigned randomly to three conditions: teacher-directed remediation, student-oriented remediation, or no treatment. Results of formative, intelligence, and achievement tests indicate that the teacher-directed remediation approach was more effective for increasing performance. Educational implications, especially for developing countries, are discussed.

Building an organized knowledge base: Concept mapping and achievement in secondary school physics

AbstractDirect teaching of problem‐solving methods to high school physics students met with little success. Expert problem solving depended upon an organized knowledge base. Concept mapping was found to be a key to organizing an effective knowledge base. The investigation of the effect of the degree of concept mapping on achievement was the purpose of this study. Six intact high school physics classes, taught by this investigator, took part in the study. Two classes were control groups and received standard instruction. Four classes received six weeks of concept‐mapping instruction prior to the unit under study. Two of these four classes were the low‐level treatment group and were required to submit concept maps at the conclusion of the instruction. The other two classes were the high‐level treatment group and were required to submit concept maps at the beginning and at the conclusion of the unit under study. One class from each treatment group took a pretest prior to instruction. An analysis of the posttest results revealed no pretest sensitization. A one‐way analysis of covariance indicated a significant main effect for the treatment level at the p < 0.05 level. A pair of single‐df comparisons of the adjusted treatment means resulted in significant differences (p < 0.05) between the control group and the average of the treatment means as well as between the two experimental groups. It can be concluded that for this sample (upper‐middle‐class high school physics students) mapping concepts prior to, during, and subsequent to instruction led to greater achievement as measured by posttest scores.

Computer-aided physics-particles in electromagnetic fields

Describes a software package dealing with the motion of charged particles in electric and magnetic fields. The programs are designed for use in high-school physics classes, but are appropriate for use at the college freshman level. Use of the programs is dependent on the students' mathematical knowledge and will take the students as far as they are able to go. Due to the lack of possible real experiments, this program will be a great aid in teaching the theory of electrodynamics.

Developing reading skills in the high school physics class

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Predictors of the Social Environment of Learning

A series of studies of high school physics classes throughout the nation (summarized in Walberg and Anderson, 1968) has shown that measures of student perception of classroom environment obtained at midyear predict gains in cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning criteria during the school year. With an improved environment instrument, the first of a second series on a new sample (Walberg, 1969d) showed that the canonical functions of the scales predict the same battery of learning criteria. Further, the study showed that the functions account for significant and substantial variance even after initial differences in achievement and interest in the subject and IQ are entered in stepwise regression equations. There is also evidence that environment scales moderate the relationships of instruction (Walberg, 1969a), IQ (Anderson, 1968), and personality (Bar-Yam, 1969) to learning criteria. Since personality and intelligence are fairly resistant to sharp changes, especially in older children (Bloom, 1964), replicated studies of such moderating effects would make it possible to 1) assign students of different characteristics to optimal learning environments and 2) change environments to make them optimal for most students (Walberg, 1969a). The feasibility of the second alternative was shown by an experiment by Anderson, Walberg, and Welch (1969) in which it was found that different course materials randomly assigned to classes produced significant differences in classroom environments. To seek hypotheses for further experimentation