written by Paula R. L. Heron
published by the American Association of Physics Teachers
edited by Charles R. Henderson, Kathleen A. Harper, and Amy D. Robertson

The past few decades have seen dramatic growth in Physics Education Research (PER). Along with this growth, there have been significant shifts with respect to which questions to pursue, how to pursue them, and even how to talk about findings. Throughout this evolution, the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington has conducted an influential program of research and curriculum development and maintained a focus on conceptual understanding and reasoning skills. One tradition closely associated with the group is improving student learning by identifying and addressing student difficulties. This paper attempts to set forth the empirical and theoretical basis of this tradition, to place it in the broader context of PER, and to outline an agenda for future research that represents a natural outgrowth of the empirical achievements of the past in the light of emerging theoretical developments.

• Download Getting-Started_Identifying-and-Addressing-Difficulties.pdf - 867kb Adobe PDF Document

Published July 21, 2018
Last Modified July 21, 2018

This file is included in the full-text index.