Abstract

Abstract There is a huge and increasing gap between educational and psychological perspectives on everyday physics, which is potentially damaging at both the practical and theoretical level. Science educators typically treat every day physics as a problem, which inhibits mastery of fundamental concepts. Psychologists emphasize virtuosity, indicating awareness of precisely these concepts in very young infants. So is the everyday physics of interest to education an entirely separate system of knowledge from the everyday physics that psychologists study, and what practical consequences follow from the answer? These are the issues that Christine Howe will address in her talk, referring to results from six recently completed studies (funded by the ESRC ) where primary school children worked on computer-simulated problems relating to force and motion

Profile Christine Howe is a psychologist who trained at the universities of Sussex and Cambridge, and who has held professorial appointments in both Psychology and Education. Her main research interests are children’s reasoning in science and mathematics, peer interaction and conceptual growth, and communication and social relations amongst children. She has published seven books and over 200 journal articles and book chapters. Christine has edited three academic journals and served on many editorial boards. She has been elected to the Academy of Social Sciences, and holds an Associate Fellowship of the British Psychological Society, whose Developmental Section she has chaired. She has contributed to administration and policy making relating to academic research and postgraduate training at the local, national and international levels. Her work informs school curricula around the world.