Abstract
Students at upper secondary and college level in many countries are introduced to quantum physics (QP) in a mostly mathless course. Research shows that addressing epistemological and philosophical aspects would be beneficial for novice students’ conceptual understanding. However, physics teachers seldom address these nature of science (NOS) aspects in their lessons. We take the view that teachers only implement these aspects if this serves their goals. This study explores whether experienced Dutch high school teachers, who are not trained for NOS teaching, address NOS in their QP lessons when provided with NOS-infused teaching resources. We based our framework on literature about pedagogic content knowledge and on the principles of the practicality of educational innovations. Teacher interviews () supported by classroom observations provided insights into how and why teachers use specific elements from the resources. Our research reveals teachers’ perspectives on teaching QP in secondary schools and why they think NOS aspects can be helpful to reach their teaching goals. Our findings support the view that conceptual QP is valuable for all students because an informed NOS view is vital for everybody in today’s society. Additionally, we expect that an ecological intervention that supports teachers and at the same time recognizes their professionality and environment has potential implications for other fields of science education and could have a significant positive impact in classrooms.
- Received 17 May 2021
- Accepted 9 September 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.020132
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
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