Development of research based teaching materials: The learning output of a course for geometrical optics for lower secondary students

Abstract

Learning physics is a difficult endeavour since our everyday experiences frequently result in naïve theories which do not or do only partly correspond to scientific concepts. If instruction does not take these well-known conceptions as a starting point for learning processes and neglects typical learning difficulties, it is likely to be non-effective. This holds true for all areas of physics, also for introductory optics. This article reports the development and evaluation of research based teaching materials. These teaching materials take domain specific learning problems known from research into account. In addition, they are based on an atypical content structure which was developed based on Design Based Research. The current version of the optics course was evaluated in year 8 physics classes. The comparison of Austrian students’ achievement after conventional instruction in optics in year 8 (N = 16 classes) and students instructed with our optics course (N = 5 classes) will be reported.