Views About Learning Physics Held by Physics Teachers with Differing Approaches to Teaching Physics

Research into teacher thinking offers potential insights into ways of promoting better teaching. A recent qualitative study explored the views about physics, and learning and teaching physics of a group of teachers whose classroom practice was 'traditional' and a group who used conceptual change teaching approaches. This paper focuses on the views about learning physics held by the two groups. To summarize and compare the groups, a composite description was created for each group. This composite description represents all the common views of teachers who were in that group. The composite description is termed 'typical' teacher. The study concluded that the conceptual change teachers' views about learning physics were constructivist while the traditional teachers held absorptionist views.