Views about Physics held by Physics Teacherswith Differing Approaches to Teaching Physics

Pamela Mulhall & Richard Gunstone

Published online: 5 September 2007# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract Physics teachers’ approaches to teaching physics are generally considered to belinked to their views about physics. In this qualitative study, the views about physics heldby a group of physics teachers whose teaching practice was traditional were explored andcompared with the views held by physics teachers who used conceptual change approaches.A particular focus of the study was teachers’ views about the role of mathematics inphysics. The findings suggest the traditional teachers saw physics as discovered, closeapproximations of reality while the conceptual change teachers’ views about physics rangedfrom a social constructivist perspective to more realist views. However, most teachers didnot appear to have given much thought to the nature of physics or physics knowledge, norto the role of mathematics in physics.

Keywords Physics teachers . Views about physics . Views about teaching physics .

Mathematics in physics

Physics teachers have a tacit understanding, strongly shared by the students, that theimportant aspects of physics have to do with manipulation of mathematical symbols(de Souza Barros and Elia 1998, para. III(ii)).

Physics has traditionally been regarded as one of the hard sciences, being seen to be,among other things, abstruse, objective and highly mathematical. Indeed its image is suchthat it is held in an almost reverent esteem by the public in general and by physicists inparticular (Ford 1989).

Part of the mystique of physics lies in its attempts to explain the behaviour of thingsfrom the very large to the very small, and its tackling of the ‘big’ questions (How did theuniverse begin? What keeps it going?). In fact, the science writer and commentator,

Res Sci Educ (2008) 38:435–462DOI 10.1007/s11165-007-9057-6

P. Mulhall (*) : R. GunstoneFaculty of Education, Monash University, Building 6, Clayton 3800, Victoria, Australiae-mail: pam.mulhall@education.monash.edu.au

Margaret Wertheim (1997), argues that physics has taken on the role of religion indetermining our world view of how the universe works. Her analogy of physics as religionincludes physicists as high priests and interpreters of ‘the Truth’ (or what others have calledthe ‘Book of Nature’). The task of the physicist is to ‘discover’ through observations themathematical relationships that are assumed to govern all behaviour:

[A] major psychological force behind the evolution of physics has been the a prioribelief that the structure of the natural world is determined by a set of transcendentmathematical relations. (p. xv)

The respected physicist and author of popular science books, Paul Davies (1991), agrees:

[T]he belief that mathematical laws of some sort underpin the operation of thephysical world is now a central tenet of the scientific faith. (p. 47)

[T]he laws have taken on the status formerly reserved for God and are imbued withthe same mystical properties: They are universal, eternal, absolute, transcendent,omnipotent .... (p. 48)

That the laws of physics are expressed in mathematical form further adds to itsmystique. Such is the importance of mathematics in representing physics relationshipsthat it is often referred to as the ‘language of physics’. This, of course, implies that to beable to speak the language of physics, and hence to understand its ideas, one must beknowledgeable about, and good at, mathematics. Certainly many physics text books,particularly at the tertiary level, are incomprehensible without a suitable background inmathematics.

Another consequence of the mathematical form of these laws is that they can be testedusing measurements. This adds a sense that physics is what Chalmers (1982) calls “reliableknowledge” in which there is no room for “personal opinion or preferences and speculativeimaginings” (p. 1). This view is reflected in the statement made by a famous physicist,William Thomson (later raised to the peerage as Lord Kelvin), that is quoted in a popularundergraduate physics textbook of the 1960s to 1980s:

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it innumbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers,your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning ofknowledge but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of Science,whatever the matter may be. (Halliday and Resnick 1966, p. 1)

At the heart of the research reported in this paper is the question of whether, and how,these essentially philosophical ideas about physics impact on physics teachers’ thinking.Arguably, physics teachers who hold beliefs of the kind outlined above will, as truedisciples of physics (to use the Wertheim analogy), attach more importance in their teachingto the mathematical representation of physics ideas than to other ways of representing them,for this captures the essence of what physics is about, viz. providing an objective, rigorousand proven description of an external world. Unfortunately, as Linder (1992) cogentlyargues, teaching which portrays physics this way is likely to be counter productive in termsof developing students’ understanding, for it encourages them to rote-learn; to believe thatbeing able to solve physics problems demonstrates conceptual understanding; and to takean unreflective approach to learning about physics ideas.

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The study sought to better understand why physics teaching is as it is, and to help thosewho work in pre- and in-service physics teacher education programs. The research was partof a larger qualitative study that explored the views about physics and learning and teachingphysics amongst a group of physics teachers whose teaching approaches were traditionaland compared them with the views of a group of teachers who used conceptual changeteaching approaches (Mulhall 2005). In this paper, we focus on the views about physicsheld by the two groups of teachers, who all taught upper secondary school physics. In thefollowing discussion, we provide theoretical perspectives of traditional and conceptualchange approaches to teaching physics, and discuss relevant literature concerning researchon teachers’ views in general and on physics teachers’ views in particular. We then explainthe research context, the aims of the study and method used, and summarise the results.Finally we discuss the implications of the findings.

Traditional Approaches to Teaching Physics

It appears to be well accepted that traditional physics teaching emphasises facts, definitionsof physical concepts and use of formulas to solve physics problems (Linder 1992; Osborne1990; Wildy and Wallace 1995). As Osborne (1990) notes, much of this teaching seems toassume that students develop an understanding of the concepts of physics throughsuccessfully completing numerical problems and by doing practical work (pp. 191–193). Inthe light of the discussion earlier, it would seem that traditional physics teaching is based onthe view that learning physics is unproblematic because the ideas of physics areunproblematic in that they are discovered, observable truths which are unambiguouslyand accurately represented through mathematics. The following description is particularlyapt:

[This teaching] attempts to transmit to learners concepts which are precise andunambiguous, using language capable of transferring ideas from expert to novice(teacher to student) with precision. (Carr et al. 1994, p. 147, emphasis in original)

As an advance organiser, we note that our argument is not that facts, definitions andformulas are unimportant in physics. Rather, our argument is that these represent theendpoints of considerable intellectual efforts by physicists to understand phenomena. Thetraditional teaching approach of using these as beginning points for learning not only failsto acknowledge the complex and discursive nature of physics ideas, but also, as weelaborate below, is unhelpful for promoting understanding.

Conceptual Change Teaching

The plethora of research over the past 25 years which has revealed that many students’understandings of science ideas are at odds with scientists’ views (Osborne and Freyberg1985; Pfundt and Duit 1994) suggests that traditional science teaching approaches areinadequate in terms of developing student conceptual understanding. Ways of improvingstudents’ understandings that have been suggested by researchers are usually qualitativeand involve student discussion (Hewson et al. 1998; McKittrick et al. 1999; Scott and

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Driver 1998). Generally these approaches involve recognising that students construct theirown understandings, and that when they enter the classroom, students already haveunderstandings about phenomena which they have developed to explain their everydayexperiences. From this perspective, learning occurs when new constructions are made and itis the role of the teacher to try to influence these so they are consistent with scientificthinking. Thus learning is seen as a process of ‘conceptual change’, although it is nowrecognised that (1) learning tends to be more gradual than this terms suggests, and that (2)‘conceptual addition’ is probably a better term because it acknowledges that learning is

only rarely a sharp exchange of one set of meanings for another, and is more often anaccretion of information and instances that the learner uses to sort out contexts in whichit is profitable to use one form of explanation or another. (Fensham et al. 1994, p. 6)

Just as it was argued that traditional physics teaching suggests a particular view ofphysics, so too researchers have argued that conceptual change teaching approaches inscience (and, by implication, physics) imply a particular view of science (and hencephysics). Driver et al. (1994) make the point that scientific knowledge is essentially“symbolic” (p. 5) and “socially constructed and validated” (p. 6). They note that scienceideas do not develop in a “nonproblematic way from observations” or by “reading the‘book of nature’” (p. 6). Instead, these scholars argue that “the objects of science are not thephenomena of nature” (p. 5) but are “constructs that have been invented and imposed onphenomena in attempts to interpret and explain them, often as results of considerableintellectual struggles” (p. 6). However, once accepted by the scientific community, theseconstructions are incorporated into the way scientists think about, and view, the world,eventually becoming part of the public knowledge of science. Crucially, it is unrealistic tothink that any individual would independently develop these same constructions. As Driveret al. (1994) put it:

[T]he symbolic world of science is now populated with entities such as atoms, ...fields and fluxes, ...; it is organized by ideas such as evolution and encompassesprocedures of measurement and experiment. ... [Such entities, ideas and procedures]are unlikely to be discovered by individuals through their own observations of thenatural world. (p. 6)

Consistent with the above view of scientific knowledge as being socially constructed andvalidated, Driver et al. (1994) consider That:

learning science involves being initiated into scientific ways of knowing .... [It]involves being initiated into the ideas and practices of the scientific community andmaking these ideas and practices meaningful at an individual level. (p. 6)

Accordingly, the implication for science teachers is that their role is to “mediate” thislearning and help learners to make “personal sense” of science ideas and “the ways inwhich knowledge claims are generated and validated” (Driver et al. 1994, p. 6).Underpinning this role is, as noted above, the view that it is unlikely that a learner willdiscover the ideas of science through personal observation because the (disciplinary)knowledge of science is socially negotiated and validated and its ideas problematic, aposition with which there appears to be consensus among other academics (e.g. Hewson etal. 1998; Hodson 1998; Tobin and Tippins 1993).

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Applying these ideas to physics classrooms leads to the position that the role of teachersis to introduce students to the physics ‘way of knowing’, including of course its definitionsand formulas. However, consistent with our argument earlier, definitions and formulas inthese forms of physics classrooms represent an endpoint of teaching, and consideration ofhow to best enable students to reach this endpoint (as opposed to just asserting theendpoint) is crucial. Teacher facilitated discussion in which students consider their own andphysics ideas about phenomena plays a central role in students’ meaning making and helpsthem understand why physicists hold these ideas (Leach and Scott 1999; Scott and Driver1998). In comparison to the traditional teaching approach of assuming that understanding offormulas develops as students solve problems, the social constructivist position is thatproblem solving should only be introduced after such understandings have been developed.

As the fundamental focus of this paper is teachers’ views about physics, research thatothers have conducted in this area is now discussed, beginning with a brief consideration ofsome common issues relating to researching teachers’ views.

Researching Teachers’ Views

In his review of general research into teachers’ beliefs, Pajares (1992) notes That

[Beliefs] travel in disguise and often under alias – attitudes, values, ... opinions, ...perceptions, conceptions, ... implicit theories, explicit theories, ... perspectives ...(p. 309)

(‘Views’, the expression used in this paper, easily fits into this list.)Pajares (1992) also asserts that comments, intentions and behaviours must all be taken

into account when making inferences about beliefs (p. 316). In this study, such an approachwas neither practical nor appropriate given the nature of the research questions, listedbelow. Instead, physics teachers’ views were inferred from their responses in extendedinterviews, a method advocated by Kagan (1990) as being one of the better approaches forexploring teachers’ views because teachers may be unaware of the beliefs they hold, orunable or reluctant to express them, and have beliefs that are contextually dependent(p. 420). Observations of classrooms were used to classify teachers’ teaching approach.These classroom observations also provided a check that the teachers’ practices were notinconsistent with their interview responses, but their capacity to provide insight intoteachers’ views was limited because only a few lessons were able to be observed. Inaddition, research into teachers’ views about the ‘nature of science’, defined as “the valuesand assumptions inherent to the development of scientific knowledge” (Lederman andZeidler 1987, p. 721), has generally struggled to find clear links between teachers’ viewsand their classroom practice (Lederman 1992; Lederman et al. 1998).

Teachers’ Views About Science

A search of the literature suggests that there has been a greater abundance of research intoteachers’ beliefs about science than about physics, and that the general view is thattraditional teaching in both science and the science disciplines is linked to a belief thatscientific knowledge is discovered and proven knowledge (e.g. Linder 1992; Prawat 1989,1992; Tobin 1998; Tobin et al. 1994). Many research reports support these conclusions. For

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example, an ethnographic study by Gallagher and his students found that a group of scienceteachers tended to think of scientific knowledge as objective, being based on observationsand experiments; and that they focused on the so-called ‘scientific method’1 and on sciencecontent knowledge in their teaching, but did little to help promote student understanding(Gallagher 1991, pp. 124–127). In another ethnographic study, Duschl and Wright (1989)obtained similar results. The science teachers studied had “logical positivistic” views aboutscience, and considered that ‘the scientific method’ was the approach used in science (pp.490–492). These teachers emphasised scientific propositional knowledge and processes,and focused on students’ acquisition of content knowledge in high ability classes and ondeveloping students’ basic skills such as reading and writing in low ability classes (pp.482–486). A case study of biology teachers by Benson (1989) found they considered that“all aspects studied in science exist in the real world” and that truth is determined by testinghypotheses using ‘the scientific method’ (p. 339). They tended to use a lecture styleteaching approach and focused on presenting detailed information for students to learn.

Research amongst pre-service science teachers has produced similar findings. Aguirre etal. (1990) explored the views of students entering a secondary science teacher educationprogram using a questionnaire with open-ended questions and concluded that holding a“‘discovery’ view of science” may dispose student teachers towards a “‘knowledge intake’view of learning” and a transmissive approach to teaching (p. 389). Hewson and colleaguesalso explored pre-service biology teachers’ views during a teacher education program(Hewson et al. 1999a, b) but employed a more extensive range of qualitative investigations,including interviews about conceptions of science teaching (Hewson and Hewson 1989).They found that at the time of entering the program, these prospective teachers had“positivist” views of science knowledge and transmissive teaching views (Hewson et al.1999b, p. 379), with most believing that “true knowledge exists, that it is independent ofindividuals, and that it can be transmitted or passed on to another person by using goodexplanations and demonstrations of scientific principles” (p. 378).

Some studies have compared the beliefs of different groups of teachers. Tsai (2002)categorised a group (N=37) of science teachers’ beliefs about teaching science, learningscience and the nature of science as “traditional”, “process” or “constructivist” (p. 773). Thestudy found that about 40% of teachers held congruent traditional beliefs about teaching,learning and science, about 10% held congruent process beliefs and about 5% heldcongruent constructivist beliefs (p. 777). In a later study of four science teachers, Tsai(2007) found strong links between their science epistemological views, teaching beliefs,and instructional practices. Hashweh (1996) compared the teaching practices of two groupsof science teachers with different epistemological views, which he labelled as “construc-tivist” and “empiricist”. While he concluded that teachers’ epistemological beliefs influencetheir teaching, the study itself did not include observations of teachers’ actual practices butinstead used self reports by teachers about their practices.

Scholars have suggested varying reasons for teachers’ beliefs about science. Pomeroy(1993) found in her survey exploring beliefs about science and science education thatsecondary science teachers appeared to subscribe more strongly than elementary teachers toa traditional view of science that “the only valid way of gaining scientific knowledge [is]

1In this paper, references to the stereo-typical scientific method commonly portrayed in textbooks (see forexample McComas 1998, p. 57), are denoted by using inverted commas, e.g. the ‘scientific method’

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through the application of inductive methods based upon observation and controlledexperimentation” (p. 262). She suggested these differences occurred because secondaryteachers, unlike elementary teachers, generally have a formal science training and havebeen initiated “into the norms of the scientific community”, whose members generallyespouse traditional views about science (p. 269). On the other hand, Brickhouse (1989)suggested that secondary science teachers’ beliefs may be influenced by years of exposureto the idealised models of science presented by text books, and also by working forlengthy periods in schools that value teaching factual knowledge. Nott and Wellington(1996) argued that science teachers’ “(k)nowledge of the nature of science will be broughtto the classroom and developed through classroom experience” (p. 286, emphasis inoriginal) for they constantly face issues related to the nature of science, such as “practicalsgoing wrong” and ethical problems related to the development of scientific knowledge(p. 286).

Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman (2000a) reviewed studies of (generally unsuccessful)attempts to develop prospective and in-service teachers’ conceptions of the nature ofscience. They concluded that such approaches are more likely to succeed when they includeexplicit teaching about the nature of science and provide opportunities for teachers to reflecton aspects of the nature of science. In addition, Schwartz and Lederman’s (2002) study of twobeginning teachers as they learned about the nature of science suggested that progression intheir understanding about the nature of science was linked to the strength of their subjectmatter knowledge. Abd-El-Khalick (2005) found a philosophy of science course to berelatively more effective than a science methods course when both used an explicit,reflective approach to teaching about the nature of science. Explicit, reflective approaches toteaching about the nature of science that involved teachers participating in scientific inquiryhave also been successful (Akerson and Hanuscin 2007; Bencze and Elshof 2003). However,a study of the effect of history of science courses on prospective teachers’ views aboutscience failed to detect any significant influence (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman 2000b).

Comment

An important issue that generally seems to be unacknowledged in much of the research intoteachers’ views about science is that ‘science’ comprises a diversity of disciplines. Indeed,Chalmers (1982) considers that it is “misleading” to speak of ‘science’ as though it is “asingle category” (p. 166), a view reflected by Lederman (1992) who observes thatconceptions of science differ between the scientific disciplines, noting the differencesbetween the disciplines, about, for example, what constitutes an acceptable causalexplanation (p. 352). For example, teleological explanations are generally not acceptablein physics because they are seen to anthropomorphise physical objects; however, they arequite common in biology, possibly because of Darwinian ideas about natural selection(Ruse 1988).

There are other differences between the various science disciplines. Physics hasrelatively few theories, and these are highly interconnected with strong predictive power;biology, on the other hand, has many theories, but the relationship between these isrelatively less well developed and they generally lack predictive capacity (Mayr 1988;Rosenberg 1985). Whereas for the physicist “[t]he watch words ... are logicality andsimplicity” and the ultimate goal is to understand the universe using smallest number of

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physical laws possible (Stuewer 1997, Section on ‘The physicist’s point of view’, para. 5),the biologist deals with living organisms that are inherently complex, and evolution and thefactors involved in the emergence of life are such that generalisations often need to beprovisional (Keller 2007). In chemistry, chemical behaviours are regarded as too complexto reduce to a few physical laws (e.g. Baird et al. 2006). A fundamental difference from theperspective of this study is the extent to which mathematics is used in the various sciencedisciplines, for common perceptions arise that are associated with this difference, assummed up by Bronowski and Mazlish (1960):

Our confidence in any science is roughly proportional to the amount of mathematics itemploys ....We feel that physics is truly a science, but that there somehow clings tochemistry the less formal odor (and odium) of the cook book. And as we proceed tobiology ... we know that we are fast slipping down a slope away from science. (p. 218)

It seems that research in science education has generally not explored specific features ofthe various science disciplines and acknowledged differences between them. An exceptionis a study by Tsai (2006) who found that Taiwanese students believe that biologicalknowledge is more tentative than physics knowledge. In addition, a study by Koulaidis andOgborn (1989) found science teachers from different disciplines had different views aboutthe nature of science and recommended further research into teachers’ views about thevarious science disciplines, which the present study aims to do.

Physics Teachers’ Views About Physics

A study by Veal (1999) provides some insight into the possible physics related views ofphysics teachers. His qualitative investigation of the development of pedagogical contentknowledge (PCK) in two secondary chemistry and two secondary physics pre-serviceteachers found that this development was influenced by beliefs about their subjectdiscipline. The pre-service physics teachers’ practice was influenced by beliefs that physicsis “a mathematically oriented discipline”, is seen as hard by students, and uses a“macroscopic perspective” when explaining phenomena (pp. 26–30). The chemistry pre-service teachers’ practice was influenced by different beliefs related to chemistry.Interestingly, in the model for PCK development proposed by Veal (1999), beliefs andPCK are “inextricably intertwined”, with beliefs informing the classroom practice of pre-service teachers and this practice informing beliefs (p. 32).

An interpretive study of two physics teachers concluded they held “positivistic” viewsabout the nature of science despite their long experience with a high school physics coursewhich promoted “a view of science as ‘invented’ or ‘constructed’” (Abu-Sneineh, cited inGallagher 1991, pp. 126–127). Interestingly, a specifically physics related view was notedin one of these teachers who said, “Physics, for the greatest part is very objective” (Abu-Sneineh, cited in Gallagher 1991, p. 127).

Finally, Tobin et al. (1997) describe the teaching practices of a beginning physics teacherwho espoused a constructivist view of learning but tended to focus on applying formulas,and did little to promote the development of student understanding of the associatedconcepts. There was a sense of “physics as being elusive and beyond the grasp of everydaycommon sense” (p. 505), and a willingness on the part of both students and teacher toaccept explanations as being correct or incorrect on the basis of the authority of physics as adiscipline (pp. 502–503).

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The Context of the Research

The study links with a separate 3 year research project, the Understanding Physics Project(UPP)2 which explored the consequences for student learning of teaching that focused ondeveloping student conceptual understanding where ten volunteer secondary school physicsteachers taught an externally prescribed 2 year physics course (i.e. at Years 11 and 12) thatinvolved high stakes, externally set examinations during the second year. These teachers’views about physics, and about learning and teaching physics were explored during theconduct of the project, which centred on the teaching of a unit of work at the Year 11 levelin which the content areas were motion and DC electricity. Among these teachers, there wasa group of five whose practice was consistent with the approaches of conceptual changeteaching (hereafter called ‘the Conceptual teachers’). Later, these views were exploredamongst a group of five teachers whose teaching is best described as traditional (hereaftercalled ‘the Traditional teachers’). These Traditional teachers were invited to participate inthis study, and were chosen partly on the basis of convenience, and partly because we hadreason to believe (e.g. through conversations in physics teaching circles), that their teachingpractices were traditional, an assumption that was later verified as we discuss below.

The Conceptual teachers had views about learning physics that were quite different tothose of the Traditional teachers (Mulhall 2005). The Conceptual teachers consideredstudents construct understandings in terms of their personal frameworks, and that physicsideas are problematic for learners for this reason. They saw physics learning as involvingcognitive engagement with, and discussion about, physics concepts. The Traditionalteachers saw physics learning as the outcome of doing certain activities (e.g. solvingproblems), and considered that physics is hard because most learners do not have thespecial attributes or skills needed to learn physics. As noted earlier, in this paper we focuson the views about physics in these two groups of teachers.

Research Questions

The questions guiding the research were as follows.For both groups of physics teachers:

1. What are teachers’ perceptions of what physics is?2. What are teachers’ perceptions of the place of mathematics in physics?3. (a) What are teachers’ perceptions of the way/s in which the body of physics

knowledge is established?(b) What are teachers’ perceptions of the difficulty with which physics concepts have

been developed?

The Research Approach

Qualitative methods have a greater capacity than quantitative approaches for providing insightsinto teachers’ views (Kagan 1990; Lederman 1992). Hence the approach used was qualitative,

2Funded by the Australian Research Council; the chief investigator was the second author.

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the views about physics, and learning and teaching physics of all teachers being exploredthrough extensive semi-structured interviews as discussed earlier, and their membership of theConceptual and Traditional Groups being determined through observations of their teaching.

The criteria for classifying a teacher’s practice were developed during UPP. The fundamentalapproach taken for this classification was that for a teacher to be considered as being aConceptual or a Traditional teacher, that teacher’s practice needed to demonstrate clearly thathe/she belonged in the relevant group. Any teacher whose practice did not clearly indicate thathe/she clearly belonged in either of these groups was not included in the study. Conceptualteachers were those who were observed, when teaching, to use approaches in which:

& they encouraged students to make their reasoning of a situation explicit& they encouraged students to reason through conceptual conflicts, often with the aid

of peer input rather than teacher input, and to compare different ideas and decidewhich of a range of explanations was ‘best’

& there was less teacher talk and more student talk, unlike in traditional classroomswhere the reverse is the case, and,

& the teacher’s role was to ask questions to promote student engagement with ideas,rather than give answers and information.

Traditional teachers were those who, when teaching, were observed to focus on problemsolving and explanations using algorithms with little or no consideration of development ofstudents’ understanding of concepts, beyond that provided by ‘cook-book’ style laboratorywork. Central to this classification was the role of questions: Traditional teachers focusedon seeking correct answers from students or providing these themselves.

The Conceptual teachers were observed during UPP at least twice while they taughtphysics to Year 11, the lessons ranging in length from 45 to 90 min. The observers wereeither of two research assistants, one of whom was the first author, who made notes in situto describe what the teacher said and did during the lesson, and how students responded,and later generated a teaching profile that summarised the ways in which the teacherconcerned did or did not support student understanding. These profiles were used by theUPP research team of four highly experienced physics education researchers (all formerhigh school physics teachers), including both authors, to decide which teachers were‘Conceptual’. As indicated earlier, of the ten teachers who took part in UPP, five (5) wereconsidered to be ‘Conceptual’.

Similarly, the five Traditional teachers were observed twice during lessons ranging from45–90 min by the first author. Again, teaching profiles of each teacher were prepared andused to determine whether or not he belonged to the Traditional Group, this time by the firstand second authors, both members of the original UPP team. All teachers in the originalgroup of five were considered to be Traditional. Thus both Conceptual and TraditionalGroups contained five (5) teachers, with the former group comprising three females andtwo males and the latter comprising all males. (Given that the very large majority of physicsteachers in the context of this research are male, this is not in any way remarkable.)Background information about the teachers in both groups is given in Table 1. Pseudonymsare used for all the teachers in this study.

The semi-structured interviews were complex and wide-ranging in design, and includedquestions about the interviewee’s perceptions of the nature of physics and of the purposesof experimentation and its relationship with the generation of physics knowledge; about the

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role of mathematics in physics; about why the interviewee was a physics teacher rather thana teacher of another subject; about the interviewee’s perception of which content areas ofphysics were more difficult to teach and which were easier; about teaching strategies valuedby the interviewee, and why; and about the interviewee’s perceptions of student mis-/understandings as revealed in some quotes from students, in order to explore the nature ofthe interviewee’s conceptual understanding. Examples of questions that each intervieweewas asked are provided in Appendix 1.

All interviews were audio-taped. Two were fully transcribed. An examination of thesetranscripts suggested that for the purposes of this research, summaries of each interviewee’sresponses to interview questions that included important/interesting interviewee quoteswould suffice, so this was the approach taken with the rest of the interviews. Each summaryor transcription was prepared by the research assistant who conducted the relevant interview.

The analysis for this study evolved through multiple readings of the data records anddiscussions between the two authors. The initial analysis was conducted by the first author,the second author checked for confirming or disconfirming evidence in the data, anddifferences were discussed until consensus was reached. Two forms of analysis of teachers’views were undertaken, each with different purposes. The first form of analysis focused on

Table 1 Background information about conceptual and traditional teachers

Teacher (C, conceptual;T, traditional)

School type Physics taught Other teaching areas

Heather (C) Private girls Year 11 and 12 Mathematics (year 7–12)General science (year 7–10)

Caitlin (C) Private girls Year 11 and 12 Chemistry (year 11 and 12)Mathematics (year 7–10)General science (year 7–10)

Charles (C) Governmentco-educational

Year 11 and 12 Mathematics (year 7–10)General science (year 7–10)

Robert (C) Privateco-educational

Year 11 Biology (year 11)Mathematics (year 7–10)General science (year 7–10)

Dorothy (C) Private girls Year 11 Chemistry (year 11 and 12)Mathematics (year 7–10)General science (year 7–10)

Ross (T) Privateco-educational

Year 11 and 12 Mathematics (year 7–12)General science (year 7–10)

Ryan (T) Privateco-educational

Year 11 and 12 Mathematics (year 7–12)General science (year 7–10)

Joe (T) Academic boys Year 11 and 12 Information technology (year 11 and 12)Mathematics (year 11–12)Chemistry (year 11 and 12)General science (year 7–10)

Pat (T) Academic boys Year 11 and 12 Mathematics (year 7–10)General science (year 7–10)

Chad (T) Governmentco-educational

Year 11 and 12 Mathematics (year 7–12)General science (year 7–10)

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understanding the detail and nature of each individual teacher’s views about physics andlearning and teaching physics, and the links between them, while the second form focusedon understanding the commonalities and differences of views of teachers within a groupand between groups: only this second form of analysis is used in this paper, and is nowbriefly discussed.

In the second form of analysis, comments from all the teacher interviews that pertainedto views about physics, learning physics, and teaching physics were identified throughmultiple readings of interview summaries or transcripts. A list was generated of all theseaspects of teachers’ thinking, and the names of the relevant teachers; this included a crude‘score’ out of 2 based on the extent to which teachers successfully identified student mis-/understandings in one of the questions. It is important to recognise that this list was notintended to be a definitive representation of teachers’ views; instead its purpose was toenable comparisons between teachers and between the two teacher groups. In some cases, aparticular teacher’s belief was implied rather than stated explicitly, and, where thisoccurred, decisions about whether a teacher held a particular view were based on thatteacher’s overall interview responses. In addition, while each of the various aspects ofteachers’ thinking were categorised as Views about physics, Views about learning physics orViews about teaching physics, we acknowledge that some aspects of teachers’ thinkingcould have been listed under more than one heading.

This list was used to generate a second list for each group that highlighted the mostcommonly held views by those teachers within the group; for a given group, the ‘mostcommonly held’ views were regarded as being those that appeared to be held by at leastfour teachers within the group.

The second list was used to construct a composite of the most common views of eachgroup. This composite was treated as representative of the views of a ‘typical’ member ofthat group, where ‘typical’ is qualified to acknowledge that no single teacher actually hadthese views: rather, the ‘typical’ Conceptual/Traditional teacher is a construction whichfacilitates identification of the beliefs that best characterise the group of Conceptual/Traditional teachers.

The Trustworthiness of the Research

A number of checks contributed to the validity and reliability of the data:

1. Where appropriate, the summaries/transcripts were annotated to capture as much aspossible the general nature of the interviewee’s responses, e.g. pauses beforeanswering, apparent confidence or lack of confidence, etc.

2. The interview questions were examined to ensure that they concerned issues relevant tothe aims of the physics course being taught by the physics teachers.

3. An inspection of the interview questions showed that each had the capacity to providedata for at least one research question.

4. Some triangulation of data was possible because data for each research question wasprovided by more than one interview question.

5. The practice of having a second researcher check the initial analysis for discrepancieshelped to counter the effect of researcher bias.

6. An audit trail was maintained.7. While the classroom observations were not used to provide information about teachers’

views, they were not inconsistent with the data from the interviews.

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The Interviews

A portion of the list of the most common views of the teachers in the Traditional group –that pertaining to Views about physics – is provided in Appendix 2 as an example of thisform of data. It should be noted that where an idea, belief or insight is shown in bulletedpoint form, the original list contained more than one variant on this idea. As just discussed,the lists of the most common views of the Traditional and Conceptual groups respectivelywere used to construct the views of a ‘typical’ teacher within each group, whose views arenow presented. The Traditional teacher is referred to as ‘he’ as all members of this groupwere male. The views of the typical teacher are written in the present tense to give a senseof immediacy to the discussion.

The Views of the Typical Traditional Teacher

The typical Traditional teacher considers that physics is a science concerned withexplaining everything in the real world, and that its ideas are based on experimentation.Because of inadequacies in observations, these ideas are not exact descriptions of reality butfurther research will enable these ideas to get closer to the truth. That is, he thinks thatknowledge about the world is ‘out there’ to be discovered and that physics knowledge isdiscovered knowledge.

He does not see the ideas of physics as problematic, this conclusion being supported byhis view that physics research follows the ‘scientific method’ and the absence of anycomments that suggest he thinks there may be alternative ways of viewing the world.Indeed, arguably, his view that one can see physics everywhere indicates that he does notsee observation as theory dependent, but considers that the ideas of physics are essentiallyrevealed in nature.

He considers that physics is mathematical and abstract. He appears to see physics assuperior to other disciplines and/or sciences.

The Views of the Typical Conceptual Teacher

The typical Conceptual teacher thinks of physics as a science, and as being concerned withfinding useful models to explain the real world. He/she considers all models have theirlimitations and, in principle, it is possible that other models or ways of thinking mightexplain the world as well as, or better than, those currently used in physics. However, he/she does not think ‘anything goes’ in physics, seeing the following as being importantaspects of physics models:

& Models are developed through observation of, and thinking about, physicalphenomena.

& Currently accepted models have been subjected to critical review by the scientificcommunity.

& Models which are accepted have been tested in a range of ways, often over a longperiod of time, through their ability to satisfactorily explain phenomena and topredict behaviours that have subsequently been verified. Indeed the explanatoryand predictive capacities of physics distinguish it from the other main sciences.

He/she considers that the mathematics in physics functions as a language used to expressphysics ideas.

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Discussion

The views of the typical Conceptual and Traditional teachers, presented above, provide ameans of comparing the views of the Conceptual and Traditional groups of teachers. In thefollowing discussion, these views are considered in terms of the research questions thatguided this study, and examples of comments from individual teachers are given.

What are Teachers’ Perceptions of What Physics is?

Both the typical Conceptual and Traditional teachers thought of physics as providingexplanations and/or ideas about phenomena in the real world. Perhaps not surprisingly, thisaspect of physics as being concerned with everything around us tended to be something thatall the teachers emphasised when asked how they would explain what physics is. Examplesof responses from both teachers’ groups are given below:

C3: I usually say [to Year 10 students who haven’t done much physics] ..., “[I]t’sexplaining how things around you work and, why things happen the way they do, forexample, why do you get a rainbow? It’s physics explaining why those sort of thingshappen ... or don’t happen ...” and that’s probably what I’d say to a parent .... (CI1 6)(Caitlin)

T4: Um, I’d just say, “It’s the science of everything. It’s concerned with everything inthe universe” and er, and just give a few examples whether it’s er, you know, involvedin engineering or it’s concerned with astronomy or, um, you name it, it’s abouteverything, ah, which is not being particularly helpful but, ah, ah. (Slight pause.) Iguess the underlying reasons why the whole universe operates, but I would just say ...it has to do with ... optics, electricity, forces, motion, astronomy ... they’re all physics,so. (Small laugh.) (TI 1) (Chad)

However, the way the typical Conceptual and Traditional teachers thought about theexplanations/ideas of physics seemed to differ. The typical Conceptual teacher’sthinking appeared framed by how well these explanations/ideas help us understandphenomena:

C: Um, I think [the questions physicists explore come] from just, I s’pose, wanting toexplain what’s around us and also like coming from even having read something andanalysing, thinking about it, and, you know, does that make sense or maybe it shouldbe this and so looking at things that have been done, looking at things that haven’tbeen done and, you know, searching for an answer to it or searching to qualify it, oreven quantify I suppose. (CI3a 5) (Heather)

C: But I think, um, I think at least – or my thing is – that it is just a fabric to hangthings on or, um, that, um, it’s a best model, I suppose, for physical phenomena. But Ithink in physics, um, particularly, whether it’s fact or not – we teach it as fact unlessquestioned closely – but no, it’s not, I don’t believe and I don’t believe that a lot of the

3C denotes a comment from a Conceptual teacher, while T denotes one from a Traditional teacher.4This is an interview code.

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stuff you really can prove at all. It’s just the best explanation until somebody comesalong with another one .... (CI4) (Dorothy)

On the other hand, the typical Traditional teacher’s thinking seemed framed byperceptions of the truth value of these explanations/ideas:

T: Some of the ideas [about light and matter] are a bit confronting. But when[students] realise that it’s reality – that we have electron microscopes, for example,that are based on this, this, um, set of ideas, then they accept it and they can movewith it .... (TI 16(b)) (Pat, authors’ emphasis)

T: [W]e know that we can apply Newton’s three laws to a large variety of, ah,naturally occurring phenomena and explain what is happening and the explanationswe believe are correct. Ah, as to whether they’re correct in all conditions, um, theymay very well not be. There are peculiar things that happen out there, ah, particularlywhen you talk about sub-atomic particles approaching the speed of light that seem todefy any laws that Newton would have even considered. Um, therefore we can’t saynecessarily that they’re going to be true in all circumstances. (TI 9(a)) (Ryan)

The above quotes from Traditional teachers illustrate the typical Traditional teacher’sposition which seemed to be that physics provides objective, discovered information aboutreality. Linked to this view, the typical Traditional teacher’s remarks about physics weresometimes tinged with comments suggesting that physics is superior to other disciplines:

T: [E=mc2] is the first thing I write on the board when the kids come into the Year 11class. In a way ... that underpins what physics is all about – it’s that relationshipbetween energy and mass and how fundamental that is to understanding everythingabout physics. Um, and then later in semester one when we do some nuclear physics ...we have a few seconds of, um, reverent silence to observe that ... this is not just a joke,this is something that’s quite revealing. (TI 3(a)) (Pat, authors’ emphasis)

T: Ah, [physicists are] pedantic from the point of view that they demand a certain, um,vocabulary, they need a certain measuring system, they’re precise in what they say,um, if you’re drawing a force on a diagram it should be drawn on the right pointwhere the force is acting rather than just generally, um, so. (TI 9(b)) (Ryan)

Underpinning much of the typical Traditional teacher’s comments seemed to be the viewthat physics is valuable because it discovers and represents truths about the world. Thetypical Conceptual teacher also valued physics but saw this value in terms of howsatisfactorily the ideas of physics help us understand the world, and in the usefulness of itsmodels for making predictions about phenomena. Importantly, the typical Conceptualteacher was not a relativist (cf. Matthews 1992), as the following examples illustrate:

C: [Physics is] all about modelling the real world. It’s all about coming to understandthe physical world in ... a reductionist sort of way, but a way, that’s consistent .... It’s away of understanding the physical world, a way of reducing the physical world to amodel that we can grasp and understand, and therefore understand more about thephysical world. The model comes from the physical world. We use can use the modeland ... turn the model back on the physical world to understand things that we didn’toriginally realise were there. (CI1 6) (Robert)

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C: [M]y understanding is that [physicists] use all those sorts of things [i.e. ideas likeelectrons and fields] then to make predictions and build up models ... and make thembetter. And also to make predictions and then to make something that you might use,you know, a laser or whatever, so that it’s used sort of functionally .... (CI4) (Charles,interviewee’s emphasis)

Interestingly, one Traditional teacher (Joe), also shared the view of the typicalConceptual teacher that the ability to predict correctly is an important feature of physicsmodels, although he appeared to consider physics ideas in more realist terms than thetypical Conceptual teacher.

Despite the above and following comments, the majority of teachers – both Conceptualand Traditional – did not appear to have engaged in much philosophical thinking aboutphysics, as the following interview extracts illustrate:

C: I find these questions really hard to answer! (Laughing.) I never think about thesesort of things! (I feel??) really dumb! (Still laughing.) (CI4) (Caitlin)

I5: I’m ... interested in the notion of what makes [physics] a science .... I’m just tryingto get at what you think a science is. A hard question!

T: A very hard question in terms of ... internal values you’ve created over a long, longtime and to actually individualise the expression of those ideas is quite difficult, um. ...[T]o me it’s the way the world works, ah, in a physical sense in most cases .... It’smore the explaining of why a car works or, um, why a building doesn’t fall down orwhy, ah, systems intermesh and operate with each other. So to me science is a mixtureof, um, engineering, being able to mathematically model things, ah, being able topredict the way things are going to work or if they’re not going to work. So science isa difficult concept. That’s a very good woolly overview! (TI 1) (Joe)

Joe, the Traditional teacher who made the second of the above comments, consideredthat “experimentation in physics is the truth of the matter”: it was therefore surprising thathe did not refer to experiments in his remarks above about what he thought a science is. Hisabove response, and others, reinforced the conclusion that he had not previously givenmuch thought to this issue.

What are Teachers’ Perceptions of the Place of Mathematics in Physics?

Mathematics seemed to assume a more central role in the typical Traditional teacher’sconception of physics than it did for the typical Conceptual teacher. The former thought ofphysics as essentially mathematical and abstract:

I: [So] thinking about physics as a body of knowledge you think it is inextricably tied[to mathematics]

T: (Interrupts.) It’s integral. It’s like asking a mechanic to go and, ah, work on your carwithout taking his toolkit with him. Sir Isaac Newton, he was a classic case: inventeddifferential calculus so he could invent his physics problems ... (TI 3(b)) (Joe)

5I denotes a comment or question from the interviewer.

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T: Physics is hard. And it’s hard because the thinking skills that are required to analysesituations, um, scenarios, phenomena, um, are very complex. Students have toidentify, um, ideas that pertain to physics concepts. They then have to know somethingabout each concept. Um, they have to be able to understand the relationships that, um,are intricate to a deeper understanding of the concept and then they have to be able totake whatever it is in the scenario or the phenomena that they are presented with and seehow that relates to the idea and the set of relationships, fit it together in some way thatmakes some sort of sense. It’s not an easy thing to do. It is complex and that’s whypeople do think of it as a hard subject. Um, on top of that they’re generally aware that itrequires some complex, um, mathematical skills to help you along and that’s, um, anabstract thing which, um, turns people off. ... Abstract ways of processing aren’tfavourable to all people. (TI 2(a)) (Pat, interviewee’s emphasis)

The typical Conceptual teacher saw mathematics as a language used to express physicsideas (with two Conceptual teachers, Caitlin and Charles, noting that it is not the onlylanguage used in physics, giving the example of English):

C: So the formula is sort of like a summary .... Like once I’ve tied the ideas down to aformula, it’s so much easier to just think of the formula and then, you know, think ofrelationships within the formula. If you, you know, understand the way it’s beenrepresented, then it’s sort of easier to think about. (CI3a 2(a)) (Heather, interviewee’semphasis)

C: You can’t only do physics with equations. (CI3a 2(b)) (Charles)

It appeared that the typical Traditional teacher was concerned with accurately depictingthe knowledge about reality that he considered physics provides, and saw mathematics asproviding the means of doing this. By contrast, the typical Conceptual teacher, who did notsee physics ideas in such absolute terms, seemed more concerned with the essence ofphysics ideas and appropriate ways of communicating them. While it could be argued thatthe typical Traditional teacher’s valuing of mathematics in physics reflected hisphilosophical position that the world is governed by mathematical laws, it is unlikely thathe had ever explicitly considered this question; the following extract from the interviewwith one of the Traditional teachers is consistent with this conclusion.

I: And would you say generally one is looking for laws that are mathematical?

T: Um, (unintelligible words) generally, yeah (unintelligible words). Um, we alwaysseem to be looking at plotting graphs and to show relationships by looking at the waythe graph is and then the next step’s to try and, you know, create a mathematicalequation that gives us that graph so that we can predict or extrapolate or interpolatewithin that graph. (TI 4) (Joe)

The following Conceptual teacher appeared to have given some thought to the place ofmathematics in physics, and saw mathematics as enabling the development of models thatcould be tested:

C: [The power of formulas is that they enable one to take] things that are fairlyreasonably easily able to be worked out as self-evident, describe them in a simple waymathematically and then find what falls out of them. That certainly has been the pathof modern physics ... It’s playing with different models and seeing what comes out of

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them, to see if we can test them in the real world, to give some validity to the models –most of the hard work is in the developing of the models and of trying to makeconcrete predictions from models ... the models are mathematical and so you can’t getaway from that side of it. (CI3a 2(a)) (Robert, interviewee’s emphasis)

However, apart from the above Conceptual teacher, none of the teachers seemed to haveconsidered why mathematics has a place in physics.

What are Teachers’ Perceptions of the Way/s in Which the Body of Physics Knowledge isEstablished?

The views about the nature of physics knowledge were more variable amongst theConceptual teachers than they were amongst the Traditional teachers. Some Conceptualteachers thought of physics knowledge as constructed while others either did not or wereless explicit about this. These assertions are now further elaborated.

As summarised earlier, the typical Conceptual teacher’s views about physics wereconsistent with the position that physics knowledge is socially constructed and mediated.However, only two of the five Conceptual teachers in this research explicitly indicated thatthis was their considered view:

C: [R]eally physics – while there’s a lot in physics – is really nothing more thanpeople’s attempts to try and understand or model in their head a[n] internallyconsistent world view that maps as well as it can the physical world that we interactwith. (CI4) (Robert)

C: We have to construct an explanation of the whole universe, don’t we, [of] thewhole of our experience, not just in science .... It’s the old constructivist view. Iconstruct it through my experience, and my tinted vision, and tinted hearing, and allthat sort of business. (CI4) (Charles)

The other three Conceptual teachers appeared to have not given much thought to thenature of physics and to the ways in which physics knowledge develops: however, two ofthese seemed to understand that establishing the nature of reality is, in principle, difficultbecause of the lens of the viewer.

C: So as ideas develop, they can change. That can be supported or refuted so it’s anevolving thing, until the ideas get, I suppose – are almost the fashion in a lot of ways –and it becomes popular at the time and then until something else comes along tochange it a little bit more. So it’s sort of like an evolving – well, most ideas are prettymuch evolving ideas that are changing all the time, yeah. (CI4) (Heather)

C: But, um, in terms of, in terms of my own thoughts, I’d, we really have, we’ve got aset of things that actually seem to work but that may not, they may not be anythinglike that! It’s just, it’s very hard to, well, it’s very hard to put into words actually that.(CI3a 7(a)) (Dorothy)

Interestingly, the third (Caitlin) had much in common with the typical Traditional teacherin that she was quite explicit that physics tells us about reality:

I: Do you essentially see science as ... mirroring what the real world is?

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C: Yeah, I think it’s trying to explain, a lot of science is trying to explain how thingshappen in the real world or they happen the way they do or whatever, yep. (CI4)(Caitlin)

Like these latter three Conceptual teachers, the typical Traditional teacher, whose viewswere summarised above, did not appear to have given much thought to the nature ofphysics knowledge. Nevertheless, he appeared to think of physics knowledge as knowledgeabout the real world that has been discovered using ‘the scientific method’. One of theTraditional teachers in this research seemed to have more extreme views than the rest and toconsider physics knowledge provides an exact description of reality:

I: [What would you do if a student asked, ‘How do we know that Newton’s laws aretrue?’]

T: With a situation like this I would attempt to do, um, some demonstrations, that, um,show that the relations are in actual fact correct. I always try to look at things from apractical sense. (TI 9) (Ross)

The other Traditional teachers appeared to consider that physics knowledge closelyapproximates reality, with three being quite explicit that physics ideas could not, inprinciple, be proved; this seemed to be because of the problems of proving these ideas aretrue in all cases and/or of achieving the ideal conditions necessary for these ideas to beproved, as the following quotes illustrate.

T: I don’t know if you can prove anything, because to prove that F=ma, I guess you’dhave to look at every single possible situation in the universe, and you can’t do that.So you look at a tiny fraction of them and you say, ‘It works in these cases. I’m goingto assume that it works in other cases, ah, and I’m going to keep using it until I’mshown to be wrong.’

I: OK, so that’s kind of what you meant [by proving]

T: (Interrupts.) Yes. I’m not too clear and I’m not too strong on what is a rule andwhat’s a law and ... all of these things ...

I: So as long as it keeps working, it’s proven ...

T: (Interrupts.) Yeah, yeah. Because the ideas that are being pushed forward recentlyare that maybe the laws change over time. There’s a time component and we are herefor an instant in time. We don’t know whether the laws worked the same way at thebeginning of the universe. The ideas that are being pushed forward recently are thatmaybe the laws change over time. There’s a time component and we are here for aninstant in time. We don’t know whether the laws worked the same way at thebeginning of the universe. (TI 9(b)) (Chad)

T: Newton’s laws ... apply to closed systems as such and we can’t really create aclosed system but we can make [an] approximation [to test them] ... and ... see howclosely that, ah, can apply .... A pure law is a mind experiment because the reality isthat we can’t create closed systems. No matter what we try and do, there is alwayssome external influence to it. (TI 9(a)) (Joe)

None of the Traditional teachers indicated that they considered that the interpretation ofobservations depends on the framework of the observer, a view which most of the

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Conceptual teachers held. The two examples below are suggestive of these differingpositions:

T: [Students] seem to have not as much appreciation as I would like anyway that[when doing a laboratory investigation] there’s other things that you should record[apart from obvious variables] like what you hear, um, what you see, what you noticeoccurring around you, so.

I: There’s always the question of how do you know what to observe though.

T: Yep. Well, well a good scientist would be filming and taping everything as well,you know, doing very thorough research so that the whole lot would be happening. Imean they did that when they built the first stack for the atomic reactor – they filmed itas well, so. (TI 5(a)) (Pat))

C: [Even] physical experiments are an interpretation of what you’ve seen ... so I don’tknow that they are much closer to concrete reality [than thought experiments]. Thereis always the eye of the viewer, the interpretation of the viewer in both. (CI3a 3(c))(Robert)

What are Teachers’ Perceptions of the Difficulty with Which Physics Concepts Have BeenDeveloped?

Both the typical Conceptual and Traditional teachers acknowledged the importance ofexperiments and observation in developing physics explanations/ideas, but the former wasinclined to see this development in more complex terms. The typical Conceptual teachersaw physicists’ thinking about phenomena as being important in the development of physicsideas, recognised that there are contextual influences on this thinking, and considered that itis possible that other ways of thinking might explain the world better than, or equally aswell as, those used in physics. Some of the quotes given earlier support this conclusion,while other examples include the following.

C: I think serious thought needs to go into [good physics research] – it ... can’t justsort of be something plucked out of nowhere and not substantiated. So it’s got to havebeen arrived [at] through something that ... has credibility, whether it’s discussion, um,or whether ... it’s something, you know, a proven scientific process, um, usingequipment if you like for some, um, yeah. (CI3a 6) (Heather)

C: Physics is more than just the content .... What I really like about physics ... you cando it more than [in] some other sciences, [although] I think biology is perhapscatching up, and chemistry too a bit ... is the social implications ... what real science is.It’s ... a sceptical view of the world ... [it’s] testing hypotheses. And it’s all tentativeanyway. And someone can come along tomorrow and wipe out a whole area of it and[then] suddenly we’ve got this whole new field to examine .... (CI1 6) (Charles)

Robert, one of the Conceptual teachers was exceptionally eloquent:

C: Um, well I guess [physics knowledge is] not a tangible thing. It’s, um, you knowit’s hypothetical constructs in our mind, in our imagination, as a way of trying toexplain the physical world which we interact with and so it’s not a product as such thatyou can hold in your hand. (Slowly.) That’s probably why it’s not quite so linear, um,can easily be sort of seen from a different viewpoint and that’s the challenge – to

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relook at everything .... Ultimately it comes about because human beings have thispassion to try and understand and explain the world that they are interacting with, andreally physics – while there’s a lot in physics – is really nothing more than people’sattempts to try and understand or model in their head a[n] internally consistent world viewthat maps as well as it can the physical world that we interact with. So that, I guess, is whyit’s produced and how it’s produced – but it’s the same sort of thing, I guess.

I: Talking about the constructs in the head ... what we call physics knowledge impliesthat ... the constructs in the various physicists’ heads are the same about thatparticular piece of information or whatever – so how do you ... see that happening?

C: Um, well I ... guess the heritage of our society that has inherited the scientificworldview is that observable phenomena are the ultimate arbiter, rather than the eloquenceof the person that holds that viewpoint. So there is in each instance a definite attempt todemonstrate from observable phenomena alone, if that is possible, um, that a particularview or model or construct is consistent .... There is also the Occam’s Razor thing theretoo – that we tend to sort of go for what is the simplest, um, complete, internally consistentworld view. So there is also that sort of attempt – reductionism I guess – reductionism toan elegant, um, model. So probably driving all that I think, and certainly over history, hasbeen a belief that the universe is governed by intrinsically understandable and probablyultimately elegant principles, and so there’s been a real desire to find those principles.

I: So do you ...see the theory coming first and then the observables or the other wayaround or it’s a mixture of everything?

C: I think it’s very much a mixture of the two. I mean the observable phenomenastrike the question, and, you know, strike that chord in people’s hearts – ultimately intheir hearts – to want to know, and then the theories come, and, in our culture ofscientific investigation, a good theory is one that make predictions that we can then turn tothe observable world and test whether that theory does actually hold out. We extrapolate itbeyond the original observations. So they both – it’s sort of one and the other – you know,one time it’s an observation that leads you and another time it’s the theory that then comes,and then you look for observations that support or discredit that theory. (CI4) (Robert)

The typical Traditional teacher tended to think of physics knowledge as ‘out there’ to bediscovered, and that the difficulty of developing physics explanations and ideas amountsmainly to technical difficulties such as the accuracy of measurements:

T: [I]f we go way back a long, long way to, um, explorers, where they figured that,um, if they were on the sea, there was a horizon there. If they went beyond that, they’dfall over the edge; and it’s not until you actually experiment and go out in a boat and realisethat it doesn’t finish, um, then they come up with different explanations. (TI 4) (Ross)

T: [Physicists do experiments] confirming, um, or possibly also trying to disprove,um, people’s theories, um. And in, through that process to try and get better data tomore accurately confirm or ascertain a value or a rule. But in doing so, ... sometimes,um, unforeseen, um, information is revealed like data that’s not consistent with whatyou’re expecting and then that prompts further investigation which is purely to try andfocus on what is causing that particular glitch in the data. So that can be a very open-ended, um, investigation compared with something which is specifically aimed ortargeted at confirming an idea, or. (TI 5(a) (Pat)

One Conceptual teacher (Caitlin) also seemed to share this view.

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C: [S]sometimes [physicists] get it wrong and things are re-thought, perhaps. Um, Imean there’ve been different things over time that have been decided, you know, thingsbeen proposed down through the ages that turned out to be wrong. So I think that peoplecan get things wrong, um, until, I s’pose, they do something that proves that the waythey’ve predicted doesn’t happen that way or something. Um, sometimes it might [be]accepted for a while as being true, but not actually be really right. (CI4) (Caitlin)

Interestingly, similar to the above teachers’ views that over time physics knowledgebecomes an increasingly more accurate representation of reality, Roth and Roychoudhury(1994) found that secondary physics students believed that “scientists would increasinglyapproximate truth” (p. 27).

Conclusion

This paper began by suggesting that particular physics teaching approaches may be linkedto particular views about physics. In this study, however, which compared the views ofphysics teachers whose practice was traditional with those who used conceptual changeteaching approaches, such a link seemed to apply to the Traditional group but not to theConceptual group. Instead, the Conceptual teachers’ views about physics ranged from asocial constructivist perspective to the more realist views of the Traditional teachers, whotended to see physics as discovered, close approximations of reality. That is, the range ofviews about physics held by the Conceptual teachers overlapped those held by theTraditional group. Interestingly though, the Conceptual teachers as a group tended to havemore complex views about physics than the Traditional teachers.

However, perhaps the most significant finding of this study, and one consistent with thatby Lakin and Wellington (1994) in their research of science teachers’ views, is that most ofthe physics teachers (both Conceptual and Traditional) appeared to have given little thoughtto the nature of physics and physics knowledge prior to being interviewed, nor to haveconsidered the place of mathematics in physics. Indeed, further research (Mulhall 2005)suggests that the teaching practices of these two groups were more strongly linked to theirviews about the nature of physics learning than to their view about physics.

Implications

Contemporary pre- and in-service teacher education programs tend to promote reflectivepractice and constructivist ideas, and take the view that learning to teach is a lifelongprocess. Nevertheless, traditional approaches to teaching in all subjects seem to persist – oldbeliefs die hard. This is a problem in physics teaching because, as discussed earlier, thetraditional approaches used often fail to promote adequate student understanding of physicsideas. The challenge then is to find ways of promoting teacher change, of helping physicsteachers understand and implement ways of teaching that lead to better student learning.That there was some overlap in the present study between the Traditional group and theConceptual group of physics teachers in terms of the range of views about physics suggestsassumptions about teachers’ views about physics on the basis of their teaching approachmay be invalid, and that a given teacher’s teaching approach may be linked to other“weightier beliefs” (Munby 1982, p. 216). Indeed, as already noted, the study by Mulhall(2005) found stronger links between teachers’ views about learning physics and theirteaching practice. Thus it could be argued that if the goal of physics teacher education is to

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develop teachers who use conceptual change teaching approaches, focussing on helpingteachers to understand physics learning from a constructivist perspective may be moreeffective than trying to promote social constructivist views about the nature of physics.However, there are important counter arguments to this position which we now discuss.

Firstly, the physics teachers in both groups did not appear to have given much thought tothe nature of physics and how physics knowledge develops. There is a general recognitionthat science teachers need to be knowledgeable about the nature of science if they are tohelp their students develop adequate understandings about the nature of science, which isnot only a common curriculum goal (e.g. Lederman 1992) but also an important factor inpromoting students’ meaningful learning of science in ways that will help them as futurecitizens to make sense of scientific debates that have social implications (Driver et al.1996). In the context of teaching physics then, physics teachers need to have wellconsidered and informed views about physics to achieve these outcomes.

A second reason why physics teachers need to have informed views about physics arisesfrom studies which suggest that activities that are common in physics classrooms mayinfluence students’ perceptions about physics in ways that negatively impact on theirphysics learning. For example, the use of mathematics to describe relationships betweenconcepts may lead students to believe that physics describes the way the world is (Roth andBowen 1994, p. 314), a view which, as noted earlier, promotes poor student learningbehaviours and outcomes (Linder 1992; Osborne 1990). While changing students’ viewsabout physics may in itself be problematic, programs that explore issues attached to thenature of physics may help physics teachers to be sensitive to their students’ perceptionsand inform their approach to teaching physics. To this end, research by Abd-El-Khalick (2005)indicates that pre-service science teachers were more reflective about implicit messages intheir teaching practices after participating in a philosophy of science course that was designedto engage them in thinking about various issues concerning the nature of science (p. 37).

Finally, as noted earlier, programs for improving practising and pre-service teachers’nature of science conceptions that have explicitly considered aspects of the history andphilosophy of science have been more successful, albeit in a limited way, than those thatuse implicit process skills inquiry or based approaches (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman2000a). The present study suggests that for physics teachers, there is a need for such coursesto include a consideration of the role of mathematics in physics. In addition, drawing physicsteachers’ attention to the difficulty with which physics ideas have been developed andconstructed by physicists may help physics teachers understand the difficulty that learnershave in understanding these ideas. Ultimately, physics teachers need to reflect on theimplications of the history and philosophy of physics for learning and teaching physics.

Appendix 1

Examples of interview questions

1. A friend’s daughter/son is choosing their subjects for VCE [i.e. Years 11 &12]. Yourfriend is uncertain about what subjects their child should do and asks you “What isphysics?” What would you say?

3. (a) Many people have seen the formula

E ¼ mc2 show formula on a cardð Þ:In your opinion, how accurately does a formula like this portray what physics is?

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(b) If necessaryWhat do you consider to be the relationship between mathematics and physics?

4. How is physics knowledge produced?5. (a) Why do physicists do experiments (explore what interviewee means by

‘experiments’, ‘prove’, ‘theory’, ‘research’ etc. if mentioned)?(b) If not obvious from (a)How are experiments and research related?(c) If not obvious from (a) and/or (b)Is it possible to do physics research without doing experiments?

10. You are a teacher. But why a teacher of physics?(Important issues to attempt to follow here:–Why teach physics rather than maths? How do you see physics and maths asdiffering?–Why teach physics rather than other science(s)? How do you see physics and othersciences as differing?)

11. (a) What is the hardest thing for you in teaching physics (probe to explore, ifpossible, ways their views of the nature of physics and understanding of physicsare part of this)?

(b) Is this ‘hardest thing’ constant across all content areas of physics (if no, exploremechanics and electricity specifically)?

12. (a) What is the easiest thing for you in teaching physics (probe to explore, ifpossible, ways their views of the nature of physics and understanding of physicsare part of this)?

(b) Is this ‘easiest thing’ constant across all content areas of physics (if no, exploremechanics and electricity specifically)?

13. (a) What sort of teaching strategies do you value using most with your physicsclass? Why?

(b) What, if any, are the strengths of these strategies?(c) You’ve mentioned the strengths, are there any weaknesses in these strategies?(d) Do you use these strategies only with physics classes or can they be used for

other subjects as well?16. (a) If a Year 11 physics student asked you for advice on how to learn physics, what

would you tell them?(b) Do you think this is what the average Year 11 student does?

17. I want to show you a number of things I’ve heard students say during physics classesI’ve been in either as a teacher or as an observer over the past 20 years. I’d like you tocomment on each one, particularly in terms of the understanding of physics thestudent/students seem to have (show cards with each of the comments below).(a) In a Year 12 class discussion on momentum, a student said,

“But if a car crashes into a tree then there was momentum with the car and nowthere isn’t any momentum. So momentum isn’t conserved there.”

Another student replied,

“But you have to also consider what happened to the tree – it will be a real messafter the collision.”

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(b) In a Year 11 electricity class, a student said,

“...as the electrons leave the battery, push their way through the connecting wires,the light globe and back to the battery ...”

(c) In a small group discussion in a Year 11 electricity class, a student said,

“But a brighter globe means a larger current.”

(d) In a class discussion a Year 11 student said,

"According to Newton’s third law of motion, two teams having a tug of war mustalways pull equally hard on one another. If this were true, it would be impossiblefor either team to win."

Appendix 2

Table 2 Common aspects of traditional teachers’ views about physics

Views about physics Teacher codea

Physics is mathematical Cd, Rn, Rs, Je, PtPhysics is a science Cd, Rn, Rs, Je, PtPhysics is hard to understand Rn, Rs, Je, PtPhysics can be hard to understand CdPhysics is abstract Rn, Rs, Je, PtPhysics is about explaining the real world Cd, Rn, Rs, Je, Pt& and is a close approximation of this Cd, Rn, Je, Pt& and is an exact description of this RsPhysics is how the universe operates Cd, Rn, Rs, PtPhysics is everywhere around us Cd, Rn, Rs, Je, PtMost physics knowledge is based on experimentation Cd, Rs, Je, PtGood physics research follows the ‘scientific method’ Cd, Rn, Rs, JePhysicists decide what to investigate on basis of things other than‘blue sky curiosity’:

Cd, Rn, Je, Pt

& Funding Cd, Rn, Je, Pt& Boss/faculty’s decision/political agendas Cd, Rn, Je, PtComments expressing a valuing of physics and suggestive of waysin which it is ‘better’ than other disciplines:

Cd, Rn, Rs, Je, Pt

& Physics has an inner beauty Cd, Rn, Pt& Physicists are pedantic Rn& Physicists are practical Rs& References to ‘reverent silence’ about E=mc2 and ‘power of maths’revealing ideas

Pt

& All other sciences developed from physics Rn& Physics is the ‘father’ of all subjects Je

a The traditional teachers’ names were coded Cd, Je, Pt, Rn and Rs respectively

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