My research

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

After rambling about other stuff which is not the main reason for me to be in UK, I better start telling you what my research is all about. Well, I am investigating the patterns of Physics problem-solving among secondary school students here. Why Secondary School Physics? Long answer.

First of all, cause I'm doing a PhD in Educational Research. So, it must be related to educational issue.

Second, I was a Physics teacher and my first & second degrees are all about Physics Education (generally, secondary school).

Third, I was a Tutor and now a lecturer in the Physics Panel under the Science & Mathematics Education Department of Faculty of Education, UTM Skudai. So, it is my job to specialise in Physics Education.

Fourth, I don't like Chemistry and Biology (too much memorisation), so Physics is my choice among all the sciences in school.

Fifth, not many people are doing Physics. We need more people in Physics or else there will be non-experts teaching Physics. I mean teachers who don't understand Physics are teaching Physics now in schools. I've even met a Living Skills teacher teaching Physics in a secondary school, my Lord! There is a short of 30% Physics teachers in Malaysia at the moment. Among the 50% STPM and matriculation students who take Science, no more than half are taking Physics. Who will be the next Physics teachers, engineers & scientists?

Now, why problem-solving? Yet another long answers.

Many people can learn and understand Physics concepts, some can only understand the surface and some can go as deep as the core principals. But, many of them who can understand the concepts, fail to solve Physics problems. This is very evidenced when I was teaching in schools. Ask them about speed, equations, energy, etc., they can explain them in details. Yet, when you give them a question, they are stuck like they have never learnt about it. Astonishing? Try to remember your Physics lessons and exams in your school. Somehow you thought that you have understood completely a Physics concept, but when you tried the questions or exercises at the end of the chapter, it's like OMG, you couldn't even understand a question!

Also, problem-solving is a core skill in Science. We want to produce engineers, scientists and even normal students/citizens to be good problem solvers. Not just solving science related problems, but also daily life problems. We want everyone who take Physics think more creatively and critically when it comes to problem-solving. Many scholars have agreed that, problem-solving ability is a core skill in Science Education generally. What is the point of producing scientists who can only solve the same textbook problems again and again? That is a complete failure of education. There are also many educationists and philosophers emphasised the importance of problem-solving as a skill that need to be inculcated among the children today. It has become one of the aims of education.

We don't want to drill students with exercise and training so that they will pass the public exams. This according to John Dewey (a profound educational philosopher), it's like the training of the mind and has no different from the training of an animal. You train a dog to sit whenever you point your finger to the floor and say 'sit', but when you say 'sit' but do other signs, the dog will just look at you with the tongue sticking out for dog-biscuit. Do you want your students to be like that? At least I don't want them to be like that.

I know that the questions in the public exams are not geared toward the ideal problem-solving as I said, but it certainly will in the future. So, this thesis is meant for the future development of Malaysian Education. Now the drilling and training of memorising popular questions and solutions for public exams seem to be the best way to get around the passing percentage, but I am confident that in the future, this will not be the benchmark to measure the achievement of a student as we can see that the Ministry of Education is giving more and more authority to the school to assess their own students. Hence, a standardise national result will not be the main concern of the schools in the future. And the schools will start to concentrate on the building of generic skills among the students. One of the generic skills is problem-solving, which is the most essential one, because problem-solving requires the application of knowledge studied. After all, what is the use of gaining knowledge but not applying it?

So, what is the use of knowing how students solve a Physics problem? It's a HUGE significance.

First of all, you have to understand what does Constructivism mean. The central of the philosophy of Constructivism in education is that knowledge is constructed and built on. It is assimilated and accommodated to previous knowledge. Slowly, the new knowledge is built based on the old knowledge. If the new knowledge is more meaningful, it will substitute the old knowledge or it can merge with the old knowledge and make them more meaningful. The ancient concept of students come into classrooms with empty brain waiting for teachers to pour them some knowledge is no more applicable in this century. It is understood that everyone has their own pre-conceptions. Before you come into the school, you will already know that the fire is hot and the water is cold. If a teacher said that there are a few different points of temperature for fire (from blue to yellow to orange to white...), then you realise that there is coldness in the fire. Likewise with the water. So, you build the new knowledge upon the old knowledge. However, sometimes the pre-conception can be incorrect or contradict with the Physics concepts. For example, when I say weight in daily life, you measure it using the unit of 'kg'. But in Physics, weight is measured by 'Newton'. If you don't know the pre-conception of the students, how can you correct them? You can just keep on saying weight is measured by 'Newton' and when they go home, they stand on a scale and weigh themselves in 'kg' still. How confusing it is if you don't tell them, look, I know at home you say weight in 'kg', but in Physics, it's a different story, why? cause 'kg' is meant for the total of the substance...blah, blah... By knowing the pre-conception, then you can correct them and bring them to a better understanding of Physics.

Every student has their own ways to solve certain Physics problems. Many educationists tried to design a way to teach the students to solve Physics problems effectively. Now, if you understand the concept of Constructivism that I'm talking above, you will realise that it is impossible to impose one way of instruction to make sure that the students will solve Physics problems effectively. We should first examine how the students solve the problems and then, from then that we can start thinking, what's wrong with the way or ways that they use. Later, a few sets of better methods can be introduced to improve the defects in the students' ways.

Therefore, my job at the moment is to find out how do the students solve Physics problems. I want to tell the teachers that these are how they did it. Now, it's your job as teachers to understand your students by referring to the patterns that I will provide you. You will find some matches and I will surely provide you with in-depth explanations. With that, it is the job of the teachers and researchers to further develop better ways to 'repair' the students. It can also be a part of my future career to just to design a few sets of problem-solving instruction to help the students.

So, this is why I am doing this topic. I have my own problems to solve before I can solve this big problems. A research is a problem-solving. If you don't have the skills to solve a problem, how can you go on and talk about R & D, innovation, improvement and development?

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.