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Abstract
A study was made of the ability of a population of high‐school physics teachers to define physics concepts and of their views regarding the importance of such definitions. It was found possible to arrange the definitions accumulated in categories, and the classification so obtained was consonant with that of the philosophy of science. Although the subjects of this study were experienced teachers, the definitions they supplied exhibited shortcomings. Despite this, however, the teachers attached great importance to a knowledge of concept definitions. The implications of these findings in connection with the ongoing debate regarding the importance of concept definitions in science education are discussed. The high educational value of concept definitions is argued and a deficiency in this knowledge points to the shortcoming in teacher training.
Notes
1. This fact, known to many educators, also emerged in our separate study in which we examined a set of physical concepts (the same as in this study) as they are defined in a representative sample of textbooks supporting introductory courses of university level.
2. Not to confuse with the instrumentalist philosophy (as introduced, e.g., by Dewey, Citation1930, chap. 8).
3. No hierarchy of the definitions was provided.
4. Textbooks do not exactly coincide in the provided definitions of the emf, and this fact deserves a separate discussion of physics educators. As a representative of good, in our view, definitions, one can take the following: “The external [non electrical] work per unit charge that must be expanded to produce an increase in the electric potential of the charge is called the electromotive force” (Lerner, Citation1996, p. 727).
5. In the theory of electromagnetism, emf is stated to appear following the alteration of the magnetic flux through a circuit or a movement of a conductor through the magnetic field. This induced emf does not necessarily cause potential difference (Lerner, Citation1996, p. 831).
6. Among the most convincing cases of dismissing the idea of a priori concepts in science was that provided by Einstein treatment of the concept of time and simultaneity in 1905.
7. The direct influence of the scientific revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century caused the introduction of the trend of operationalism by Bridgman (Citation1964). Although the following developments in the philosophy of science have arrived to a more mature understanding of concepts (Bunge, Citation1998), a priori definitions remain in the past.
8. In fact, energy does not present an exception. Feynman himself, only two pages after the earlier quoted statement, pointed to the time symmetry as the origin of energy conservation, a fact commonly reserved for advanced courses (e.g., Landau & Lifshitz, Citation1960) and rarely mentioned in introductory courses (Hecht, Citation1996). As for Poincare, his statement was made about 20 years before Nöther’s theorem, which established the relation between the symmetry of a physical system and the conservation laws it obeys (Rosen, Citation1982).
9. Heat in thermodynamics is defined as “the thermal energy transferred, via particle collisions, from a region of high temperature to a region of lower temperature” (Hecht, Citation1996, p. 568).
10. The nominal definition of weight identifying it with the force exerted on a support is compatible with the operational definition in terms of weighing procedure.
11. The fundamental status of definitions can be illustrated by the fact that Newton’s treatises in mechanics and optics start from concept definitions.
12. Textbook support of concept definitions presents an important subject for a special study. We have performed such investigation of university‐level textbooks. The results will be reported in a separate report.