Re: errors rife in U.S. science textbooks

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

This is a fairly predictable result.  This still does not address the
problem that standard direct instruction using conventional texts does not
achieve acceptable levels of understanding.  Too my knowledge only a handful
of published texts have been involved in studies which show better levels of
understanding.  Most of these have come from research projects, and often
the authors include published papers with the teacher's manual.  These
include material from Laws, Thornton, Sokoloff, McDermott, Leonard, Hake,
Mazur, VanHeuvelin, the Hellers, and others in the PER field.  There is also
material published in Chemistry, particularly Matter and Molecules.  If I
have left off any good material, it is purely because I am ignorant of it,
it is not available as published material (I include the Web as
publication), or it did not pop to mind when I wrote this.

This does not include any of the glossy books with lots of color photos.
Sadly it also does not include "Active Physics" which has been heavily
pushed by the AAPT, or Hewitt's book.  This is not to say that they are
ineffective, just that they are untested, and one wonders if some material
has been tested, and the results were thrown out because they were bad.

If this same situation existed in medicine, then doctors would be allowed to
administer any drug they please, without regard to the consequences.  Do we
need an FDE (Federal Department of Education) to certify that educational
materials are harm free (no errors) and that they are effective????????

John M. Clement

> > None of the 12 textbooks has an acceptable level of accuracy, said John
> > Hubisz, a North Carolina State University physics professor who led the
> > two-year survey, released earlier this month.
>
>    http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/15/textbook.errors.ap/index.html
>
>    http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/pams/physics/People/hubisz.html
>
> I've written to Prof. H. to see if we can get access to the full report.