Perceiving the usage of external representations in physics

Abstract

Prior research shows the importance of external representations in learning physics at school. This research often focuses on the teaching of as well as learning with different forms of representations, such as graphs and tables, and their impact on understanding professional content. Teachers’ and students’ perception and the matching of both have not been in the focus of previous research. One open question in this regard is, how teachers estimate the adequacy of how they use external representations to teach physics compared to how students perceive it. To investigate this question, we conducted a survey of teachers as well as students of 6th, 8th, and 10th grade in German schools. The development and validation of the questionnaire is part of the research method. The results show differences between how teachers estimate the frequency and adequacy of the representations they use and how adequate students perceive this to be. As a practical consequence, these insights could be used for teachers to reflect upon the materials they use to teach physics.