An approach to research-based design of teaching-learning sequences in the context of physics education: Theoretical frameworks, pedagogical methods, and examples of Data Analysis

Abstract

In this paper we discuss an example of the research approaches practiced at the University of Palermo Physics Education Research Group (UoPPERG). Particularly, we discuss the design and development with groups of high school students of two Teaching-Learning Sequences (TLSs) on surface phenomena in liquids, and the data collection and analysis methods. In the introduction, we briefly discuss the educational reconstruction model, that we use as a theoretical framework for the designing of the TLSs, and a pedagogical methodology that in the last years has gained consensus among educators, i.e., active learning. Some considerations on active learning pedagogical and cognitive psychology foundations are also made. The main aim of the TLSs is to improve students' learning of surface phenomena, a topic that is quite relevant in Physics and other scientific and technical fields. We provide a research-based, conceptual scheme of what we mean by "improvement of students' learning", and present the TLSs phases, that are based on the well-known inquiry-and investigation-based learning approaches, that are science-specific applications of the general idea of active learning. Then, we describe some methods we use in our researches to collect and give an example of the data analysis needed to study the progression of student learning, with respect to the conceptual scheme provided, and of some of the results obtained.