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For a little over 40 years, what we label now, physics education research, has been conducted. As a result, new themes in the research in physics learning and in physics education have emerged. Some of these themes are cognitivism, qualitative research, learning as construction of knowledge, epistemological underpinnings that are not realist, student understanding-driven pedagogies, and scholarship in fields outside physics. These themes have arisen in minds of our colleagues, who focus their attention on students' understandings of physical phenomena, instead of how well the students do on conventional tests. Physics education research shows that alternative pedagogies result in a wider range of students making much greater changes in their understanding of the phenomena than the conventional pedagogies, far beyond mere statistical significance. Yet, these themes are still just themes and not major changes in physics teaching as a whole enterprise. Since we know these pedagogies are better for our students and thereby for our culture, the challenge becomes one of how to overcome the hegemonic pressures pushing back toward the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methods of physics education research were applied to find what kinds of changes in 4th, 6th, and 8th grade student understanding of motion can occur and at what age. Such findings are necessary for the physics community to effectively discharge its role in advising and assisting pre-college physics education. Prior to and after instruction the students were asked to carefully describe several demonstrated accelerated motions. Most pre-instruction descriptions were of the direction of motion only. After instruction, many more of the students gave descriptions of the motion as continuously changing. Student responses to the diagnostic and to the activity materials revealed the presence of a third "snapshot" view of motion not discussed in the literature. The 4th and 6th grade students gave similar pre-instructional descriptions of the motion, but the 4th grade students did not exhibit the same degree of change in descriptions after instruction. Our findings suggest that students as early as 6th grade can develop changes in ideas about motion needed to construct Newtonian-like ideas about force. Students' conceptions about, motion change little under traditional physics instruction from these grade levels through college level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the response of the author to the comments of Cronin, Charron, and Espinet to his article "Science Education in Elementary School: Some Observations." He cites that the article was intended to evoke thought and action to strengthen the enterprise of educating elementary school children in science, it was not intended to denigrate other aspects of science education. He also mentions that one of the basic point he was trying to make was to understand the intermediate understanding that should be brought to the students in any given instance of elementary science education instruction.

This article deals with general instructional strategies which can be used by physics teachers for the purpose of inducing conceptual change. Traditional physics instruction, embodied in the traditional physics textbook, presents a physicist's understanding of the world. Conceptions must be applied to problem situations and thus can only be identified by analyzing student responses. Changes in the knowledge state of a learner are often described in terms of assimilation and accommodations. A connection between student behaviors and conceptions is made via the words and phrases they use to describe physical situation and to explain their problem-solving actions.

Presents a letter to the editor about elementary science education.