Re: [Phys-l] Sample problems and derivations...

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

JRST is the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, and there are other
journals that have other worthy articles.  JRST has a lot of articles which
relate to practice in PER.  For example Lawson's articles, or a number of
articles exploring the need for multiple representations.  I would recommend
JRST over some of the other journals.  JRST also has the original Shaye&Adey
articles (King's College) which are essentially recapitulated in the book
"Really Raising Standards".  The JRST articles were indexed in the ERIC
database which made them accessible, while the articles in AJP and TPT were
not.

> From what I can see JRST may have had much more influence on PER practice
than many other journals.  But unless you have easy access to a research
library, or belong to the AAPT & NARST it is difficult to truly look at the
bulk of research and some of the important articles go back 30 years or
more.  In addition it is necessary to gain some understanding of Piaget's
experiments, which are in other journals.  It is popular to denigrate
Piaget, but his experiments were ground breaking, and some of his
conclusions have been used to profitably design curricula which improve
gain.  Part of the denigration of Piaget comes from just looking at his
early work, but his ideas evolved and many things attributed to him are not
quite accurate.  But certainly cognitive science has move on, built on his
foundation of experiments and his conclusions have been refined, or
remodeled.  To understand PER it is necessary to understand Piaget.  But to
extend PER, Feuerstein is probably also needed.

Feuerstein is interesting because he uses pedagogy which seems illogical.
But his aim is to change students' abilities to think.  This does not happen
very well in normal classrooms, so Feuerstein uses a series of puzzles which
do not seem to relate to classroom curricula, but which do change thinking
patterns.  His "pedagogy" would be called incorrect by many, but it does
work, so it is correct in an experimental way.

I only have limited journal access, so it is possible that I am missing
important articles in other journals.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> At 15:32 -0500 17/8/10, John Clement wrote:
> > ŠTo understand the literature it is necessary to read
> > it in depth not only in AJP, TPT, but also JRST.
>
> Perhaps a little tangential to your main points,
> John, but are you using JRST to stand for the
> academic research literature more widely, or do
> you feel that it is the key journal for physics
> education research? (i.e., cf. IJSE, Science
> Education, RISE etc).