No abstract

This study aimed at exploring the practices and beliefs physics teachers have about introducing reform-based instruction into the physics class. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews held with 11 experienced physics teachers. The results revealed that the teachers occasionally introduced a small number of enhanced instructional strategies explicitly required by the formal curriculum into their class, such as presenting, analyzing and generalizing experimental results in different forms. However, the teachers used much fewer other strategies aimed at enhancing higher-order thinking, such as asking students to formulate their own questions or introducing them to problem-solving strategies used in class. Although physics is considered a relatively well-established subject in Israeli schools, extensive differences have been identified among teachers in issues such as using rich instructional strategies in class, their self-confidence in utilizing progressive instruction, and their beliefs about students' abilities to develop higher-order thinking. Teachers often regard reform-based instruction as an idealistic view rather than a clear schooling practice; further work is required in teachers' pre-service and in-service training to make the fostering of higher-order thinking a common ingredient in science teaching.

This study addresses the development and evaluation of the Physics Problem-Solving Taxonomy (PPST), comprising five levels: retrieval, diagnosis, strategy, conceptual, and creative thinking. The taxonomy draws on Bloom's revised taxonomy in the cognitive domain, the Types of Knowledge Taxonomy, and the Problem-Solving Taxonomy in engineering. The study includes applying PPST to analyze the content of the Israeli national physics exam (the Bagrut), student Bagrut scores (n = 18,000), and student answers to a school-level physics exam (n = 164). The findings indicate that in both the Bagrut and the school exam, the higher an item ranks on PPST, the lower the students' grades on this item. In addition, the distribution of student scores on the two exams is similar, indicating high reliability and validity of the PPST scale. This tool could help physics teachers to rank difficulty levels of the high school physics exam questions, and create high school physics questions, to foster students' proficiency in physics problem solving.