This APU report for teachers focuses on the performance of students aged 15 in a range of test questions concerning electricity. It presents the findings in a sequence in which it suggests that different activities are generally encountered by students. An...

The aim of this Children’s Learning in Science Project (CLIS) research study was to describe aspects of secondary school students’ ideas about light and to set these in the context of results from other studies in the area and of the history of ideas about light and...

The report from the Children’s Learning in Science Project (CLIS) gives an account of a number of aspects of students’ ideas about energy including:

*Do students use ideas about energy spontaneously to help them interpret phenomena?

*When students are ‘cued’ that energy is involved in a situation,...

From The Centre for Industry Education Collaboration (CIEC), this information booklet is useful for those wishing to develop successful partnerships between schools and local science-based industries. It is a collection of papers that describe how different groups have encountered and handled major issues and...

This activity sheet is based on the Inventive Podcast.  It introduces two engineers involved in the development of hydrogen as a fuel, and links their work to chemistry and physics topic. The activity sheet also supports Careers Benchmark 4: Careers in the curriculum by introducing a career and role model. There...

Published in 2012, NFER was commissioned by the National STEM Learning Centre and Network to evaluate the effectiveness and early impacts of the European Space Education Resource Office for the UK (ESERO-UK). ESERO-UK aims to promote the use of space as a context for enriching science, technology, engineering and...

Several research reports exploring causes of girls' under-representation in physics, and suggesting possible approaches to tackling this issue.

'Girls in the Physics Classroom: Review of Research on Girls'...

This report, published in June 2006, showed that girls were under-represented in physics post-16.  In 2006 the Institute of Physics published the results of a review that sought to identify causes of this issue. Following publication of the research findings, the Institute produced a teachers' guide to carrying out...

Produced by the Centre for Education and Employment Research (CEER), this report sets out to identify how some schools are increasing participation in post-16 physics whilst the general trend is for a seemingly inexorable decline in physics education. Authors Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson, looked at A level...

This report, produced by the Centre for Education and Emplyment Research (CEER), looks at specialist physics teacher supply and retention in English schools. Physics is at the sharp end of teacher recruitment. It is the subject that schools find most difficult to staff. Some schools do not teach it, and others that...

This activity sheet is based on the Inventive Podcast.  It introduces electrical engineer Jack Howarth, and links his work to a physics topic. The activity sheet also supports Careers Benchmark 4: Careers in the curriculum by introducing a career and role model. There are also links to short audio clips of Jack...

This paper, published in 2012, summarises...