Improving the preparation of K-12 teachers through physics
education research
Lillian C. McDermott, Paula R. L. Heron, Peter S. Shaffer, and MacKenzie R. Stetzer
Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-1560Received 28 November 2005; accepted 5 May 2006Physics education research can contribute to efforts by college and university faculty to improve the
preparation of K-12 teachers to teach physics and physical science. Examples from topics included
in precollege and university curricula are used to demonstrate the need to help K-12 teachers deepen
their understanding of basic physics, to illustrate how research-based instructional materials can
assist in this process, and to examine the impact on student learning in K-12 classrooms. © 2006
American Association of Physics Teachers.
DOI: 10.1119/1.2209244I. INTRODUCTION
Noting that “teachers are the key to improving student
performance,” several recent reports have called for greatly
increasing the number of teachers able to teach science.^1 Pro-
ducing well-qualified teachers is a complex task that in-
volves college and university faculty, experienced teachers,
and school administrators. Ideally, K-12 certification is based
on a sound undergraduate education that is supplemented by
specialized courses. The process of becoming an effective
teacher continues through early mentoring and ongoing pro-
fessional development. This paper focuses on an aspect of
the process that requires direct involvement by physics
faculty.^2 We illustrate how research conducted in physics de-
partments can help identify and address the intellectual prob-
lems that teachersand studentsencounter with the con-
cepts, reasoning, and formal representations of physics.
The Physics Education Group at the University of Wash-
ingtonUWhas been engaged in preparing K-12 teachers to
teach physics and physical science by inquiry for more than
30 years.^3 The environment in which our interactions with
teachers take place has provided an ongoing opportunity to
examine how prospective and practicing teachers think about
physics and to develop curriculum based on this research.
The work described here involved prospective and practicing
K-12 teachers, introductory students in calculus-based phys-
ics, and physics graduate students. The preservice high
school teachers were enrolled in a special physics course that
consists of students with a major or minor in physics, math-
ematics, or other sciences. The inservice teachers were par-
ticipants in an intensive six-week NSF Summer Institute, for
which admission is nationally competitive. The undergradu-
ate and graduate students were enrolled at UW and at other
universities.
Several of the examples given here have been discussed in
papers in which the emphasis was on undergraduate
education.4–8However, most of the data related to K-12
teachers have not been published and are presented as evi-
dence of the need for, and utility, of providing special prepa-
ration in physics and physical science for teachers.^9
II. EVIDENCE OF A MISMATCH BETWEEN
STANDARD CURRICULUM AND TEACHERS
The only university instruction that most teachers receive
on topics in K-12 physics and physical science occurs in
physics departments. However, there is ample evidence from
research that a large gap often exists between what is taught
and what is learned in physics courses at all levels of
instruction.^10 The situation is of special concern in the stan-
dard courses taken by future high school teachers as well as
in the descriptive courses that may be taken by prospective
elementary and middle school teachers.
The three examples that follow are from investigations by
our group. In each, the context is a qualitative question on a
topic common to precollege and university curricula.A. Mismatch for K-5 teachers: Example in the context
of balancingElementary school curricula often include a unit on
balancing.^11 A question based on the diagram in Fig. 1 was
used to probe understanding of this concept in two different
populations.^4 Students were told that a baseball bat of uni-
form mass density is balanced on a finger and were asked to
compare the total mass to the left and right of the balance
point. This question was administered to about 675 students
in introductory calculus-based physics and about 50 inser-
vice K-5 teachers. The introductory students had completed
their study of the relevant topics. Many of the elementary
school teachers had previously taught units on balancing.
Only about 20% of the introductory physics students and
about 15% of the K-5 teachers responded correctly. Nearly
everyone who gave an incorrect answer claimed there must
be equal mass on both sides.
Along with a description of suggested activities, the teach-
er’s guide accompanying one of the units includes the fol-
lowing statement: “Every objector system of connected ob-
jectshas a point around which the mass of the system is
evenly distributed. This point is the center of gravity.”^12
There seems to be a tacit assumption that the teacher already
understands the material or can quickly learn by reading.
However, the results from the question on the baseball bat
suggest that the term “evenly distributed” may inadvertently
reinforce an incorrect belief that is common among teachers
and students.B. Mismatch for 9-12 teachers: Example from kinematicsConcepts from kinematics are taught in several K-12
grades, beginning in elementary school. Students encounter
the concept of acceleration in high school physics and some-
times in middle school physical science courses, often in
connection with objects that are falling freely or rolling
down an incline.763 Am. J. Phys. 74 9 , September 2006 http://aapt.org/ajp © 2006 American Association of Physics Teachers 763