‘Would you dare to jump?’ Fostering a scientific approach to secondary physics inquiry

Secondary school students often only use the rules for doing scientific inquiry when prompted, as if they fail to see the point of doing so. This qualitative design study explores conditions to address this problem in school science inquiry. Dutch students (N = 22, aged 14–15) repeatedly consider the quality of their work: in a conventional,...

What do they know? Investigating students’ ability to analyse experimental data in secondary physics education

This paper explores students’ ability to analyse and interpret empirical data as inadequate data analysis skills and understandings may contribute to the renowned disappointing outcomes of practical work in secondary school physics. Selected competences, derived from a collection of leading curricula, are explored through interviews and...