Action research for physics programme (ARPP)

Published in May 2011, this report from the University of Southampton, school of education  is an evaluation of the Action Research for Physics programme which was organised and managed by the National Network of Science Learning Centres between September 2009 and February 2011.

During 2007/08 the National Network of Science Learning Centres carried out the Girls into Physics professional development programme for teachers of physics, which encouraged the participants to explore fresh ways of teaching physics with a view to attracting more girls to engage with physics learning and hopefully to continue with their studies. Results from the evaluation report (Daley et al., 2009) suggest that many teachers were encouraged by the response from the girls in their classes, and in keeping with the findings of an earlier research activity by the Institute of Physics (Grant et al., 2010) the boys were also attracted by the
new approaches to teaching and learning.

In 2009 this programme was extended in the form of the Action Research for Physics (ARP) programme. Using a similar model of professional development incorporating action research, the aim was to extend the scope of the proposal to cover how new approaches to teaching physics lead to an increase in young people’s engagement with the subject, and pursuit of physics beyond GCSE level.

The full collection of STEM Learning impact and evaluation research reports can be viewed here.