Physics curriculum in upper secondary schools: What leading physicists want

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores the views of leading Czech physicists regarding a physics curriculum for upper secondary schools. This paper presents the first part of an effort to define starting points for a new physics curriculum in Czechia (subsequent phases would analyze the opinions of other scientists, education experts, and physics teachers regarding the physicists' ideas) and create a new physics textbook for upper secondary schools. The methodology was inspired especially by the objectivist grounded theory. We conducted in‐depth interviews about the upper secondary physics curriculum with 29 leading Czech physicists and identified 56 ideas (categories) that they agreed on (according to the interview analysis). Subsequently, a questionnaire was created based on these 56 ideas. Two years later, the same group of physicists were asked to express their opinions on the ideas on a 7‐point Likert scale. The new survey sought to clarify the relevance and permanence of the ideas, and the physicists' willingness to collaborate on constructing a physics curriculum for upper secondary schools. Four core categories—students, physics, context, and math—were identified through a comparison of the relevance of the ideas. Additionally, we compared the questionnaire answers of a physicist with their opinions during the interview and identified 43 ideas as permanent (in the 2‐year interval). Surprisingly, 26 of the 29 researchers in the initial study completed the subsequent questionnaire survey and 13 among these expressed their willingness to contribute to the development of a physics textbook for upper secondary schools.