Re: Why Not Give References?

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

> How many Phys-L'ers benefit from referenceless statements such as
> Texas John Clement's (2002):
>
> "One thing that I would do in the elementary schools in problem
> areas would
> be to give the students a dose of Feuerstein's 'Instrumental
> Enrichment' "?

I will agree that most do not benefit from the partial or even the complete
references, as they seldom bother to read the references.  Yes, we should
provide more complete references, but the one I gave can be easily traced
down on Amazon by a  search under the word Feuerstein.  My conclusion is
based on how seldom other people on the listserv actually ask for a more
complete reference.  Sometimes when the material is on the web others will
trace it down and read it, but purely journal or book references are usually
ignored.

Part of the problem is time.  Most correspondents keep up with references in
their own fields of science research, but education papers are always at the
bottom of the list.  HS teachers generally have little immediate access to
the more obscure materials such as Feuerstein's writings, JRST (Jour. of
Res. in Sci. Teaching), or AJP (Am. Jour. of Phys.).  These need easy access
to a research library or large metropolitan public library.  They may have
TPT (The Physics Teacher), but only a fraction of physics educators are even
members of AAPT.  Most of the articles published in TPT and other general
education journals have little content that actually improves teaching, and
even when the content is useful, it has little effect.  An example of this
is the article in TPT about the Thornton, Sokoloff ILDs.  The results of
their study were so good that every physics teacher should have immediately
bought them from Vernier.  None of the physics teachers in Houston that I
spoken to at the HAPT meetings have tried them, or even remember the
article.  Regarding the reference, I searched ERIC for Ron Thornton and came
up with NO AJP or TPT references.  I tried the TPT web site at AAPT and it
only goes back a year and a half.  The AJP archives are also extremely
limited.  My next alternative is to go to my archived copies of the journals
or copies I made for easy access.  This is time consuming, so I will not
leave my chair and do it.  Yes, I'm lazy!  If I receive a personal E-mail
asking for the reference, I will eventually hunt it up and respond. When
that happens I practically fall out of my chair in surprise.

The fact that most PER articles are not in the ERIC database is a sign that
the physics community has been very aloof from the education community.  The
fact that they have common concerns and that a number of recently researched
PER topics have already been published in science education journals has not
been noticed by many.  The reverse also happens.  Education journalists have
ignored many of the PER findings.  I see some recent signs of cross
fertilization so there may be hope.

Most of the chit-chat that goes on is top of the head stuff and has little
influence on how people actually think or teach.  Once in a while a
correspondent comes back with a post that indicates that they have actually
done some further research.  Richard Hake is certainly in the category of
people who are actually reading and thinking new thoughts about education.
There are a few others.  Once in a while after I have posted a "reference"
20 or more times I will get a response about it.  I will confess that it
takes me a long while to get around to reading book or paper journal
references, but I will read them if they are pertinent.  I have read
practically all physics and science education papers that are posted on the
web.  Recently I read Dewey's 2 papers that he advertised.  As an informal
poll how many others would be willing to send a response to me at
clement@hal-pc.org saying they had looked these up and read them?

John M. Clement
Houston, TX