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Physics educators today face two major challenges: supporting the acquisition of a solid base of conceptual knowledge and reducing the persisting gender gap. In the present quasi-experimental study, we investigated the potential of physics instruction that is enriched with evidence-based cognitively activating methods, such as inventing with contrasting cases or metacognitive questions, to overcome both of these challenges. Four physics teachers in charge of two parallel classes each applied our cognitively activating instruction in one of their classes (CogAct classes). The other classes received regular physics lessons (regular classes) on the same content. The sample consisted of 172 individuals from the advanced track of Swiss secondary school. Controlling for several individual student variables. CogAct classes (N = 87) outperformed regular classes (N = 85) in conceptual understanding at posttest (p < .01, β = 0.19, 95% Cl [0.07,0.32]) and three months later (p < .05, β = 0.13,95% Cl [0.00,0.26]). The CogAct classes' advantage in conceptual understanding was not at the expense of their quantitative problem-solving performance, which even exceeded the quantitative problem-solving performance of the regular classes at posttest (p < .05, β = 0.14, 95% Cl [0.00, 0.28]). In addition, female students with above-average intelligence (PR >75) particularly benefited from CogAct instruction, as indicated by descriptive statistics and the interaction between intelligence and condition in the group of the female students for posttest conceptual understanding (p < .05, β = 0.88, 95% Cl [0.06, 1.69]). We conclude that teachers can successfully be supported in implementing cognitively activating methods that improve their students' conceptual understanding and reduce the gender gap in physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last three decades, moderate constructivism has become an increasingly prominent perspective in science education. Researchers have defined characteristics of constructivist-oriented science classrooms, but the implementation of such science teaching in daily classroom practice seems difficult. Against this background, we conducted a sub-study within the tri-national research project Quality of Instruction in Physics (QuIP) analysing 60 videotaped physics classes involving a large sample of students ( N = 1192) from Finland, Germany and Switzerland in order to investigate the kinds of constructivist components and teaching patterns that can be found in regular classrooms without any intervention. We applied a newly developed coding scheme to capture constructivist facets of science teaching and conducted principal component and cluster analyses to explore which components and patterns were most prominent in the classes observed. Two underlying components were found, resulting in two scales-Structured Knowledge Acquisition and Fostering Autonomy-which describe key aspects of constructivist teaching. Only the first scale was rather well established in the lessons investigated. Classes were clustered based on these scales. The analysis of the different clusters suggested that teaching physics in a structured way combined with fostering students' autonomy contributes to students' motivation. However, our regression models indicated that content knowledge is a more important predictor for students' motivation, and there was no homogeneous pattern for all gender- and country-specific subgroups investigated. The results are discussed in light of recent discussions on the feasibility of constructivism in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents findings of the IRSE Video Study Physics, a research project that was carried out in the Institute for Research in School Education at the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University in Brno. Physics instruction was analysed in the conceptual framework of opportunities to learn. The sample consisted of 62 lessons of physics taught at various lower-secondary schools in Brno, the Czech Republic. The lessons were video-recorded, transcribed and coded, and the data were analysed with regard to the aspects under investigation. The paper presents findings on: a) organisation of classroom activities; b) sequencing of the teaching process; c) using didactic tools and media; d) using experiments. The results show that lower-secondary physics instruction is teacher-oriented to a great extent, which is indicated by the organisation of classroom activities. Modern media (ICT, audio and video recordings) were scarcely employed: the teachers' primary didactic tool was the blackboard. The teachers did not employ experiments very oft en - when an experiment occurred, it tended to be the teacher to carry it out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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