dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaExpounding on physics -- A phenomenographic study of physicists talking of their physics
| Authors | AAke Ingerman, Shirley Booth |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0205092 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0205092 |
| DOI | 10.1080/0950069032000070298 |
| Journal | International Journal of Science Education, Volume 25, No. 12, Pages 1489-1508 (2003) |
Abstract
Physicists and physics students have been studied with respect to the variation in ways they expound on their topic of research and a physics problem, respectively. A phenomenographic approach has been employed; six fourth-year physics students and ten teacher/researcher physicists at various stages of their careers have been interviewed. Four qualitatively distinct ways of expounding on physics have been identified, constituting an outcome space where there is a successive shift towards coherent structure and multiple referent domains. The interviewed person is characterised as expressing an 'object of knowledge' and the interviewer is characterised as a willing and active listener who is trying to make sense of it, constituting a 'knowledge object' out of the ideas, data and personal experience. Pedagogical situations of analogous character to the interviewer-interviewee discussions are considered in the light of the analysis, focusing on the affordances for learning offered by the different forms of exposition.
{
"annotation_id": "554cb5b5-3512-40ce-a9a2-e804740298b4",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:00:39.806000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:00:39.806000Z",
"file_hash": "8d9f47a73fd57a7b011ec0708dc8bfa2a17b36538565ca339717e962559d41fe",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "Physicists and physics students have been studied with respect to the\nvariation in ways they expound on their topic of research and a physics\nproblem, respectively. A phenomenographic approach has been employed; six\nfourth-year physics students and ten teacher/researcher physicists at various\nstages of their careers have been interviewed. Four qualitatively distinct ways\nof expounding on physics have been identified, constituting an outcome space\nwhere there is a successive shift towards coherent structure and multiple\nreferent domains. The interviewed person is characterised as expressing an\n\u0027object of knowledge\u0027 and the interviewer is characterised as a willing and\nactive listener who is trying to make sense of it, constituting a \u0027knowledge\nobject\u0027 out of the ideas, data and personal experience. Pedagogical situations\nof analogous character to the interviewer-interviewee discussions are\nconsidered in the light of the analysis, focusing on the affordances for\nlearning offered by the different forms of exposition.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0205092",
"authors": [
"AAke Ingerman",
"Shirley Booth"
],
"categories": [
"physics.ed-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1080/0950069032000070298",
"journal_ref": "International Journal of Science Education, Volume 25, No. 12,\n Pages 1489-1508 (2003)",
"title": "Expounding on physics -- A phenomenographic study of physicists talking of their physics",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0205092"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "6c51aa7e-54b8-4b32-b2eb-30ff6dcbf641",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}