The aim of physics education is to generate understanding of physics and there is considerable anecdotal evidence that passing examinations in physics is not the same as understanding the subject. This paper describes how the areas of difficulties in understanding of physics were determined for pupils in Taiwan aged 13-15. Test material which…

Freshmen and sophomore science education students (N=32) were observed to determine their performance (attentive responses) on four cognitive variables. One result found is that 44 percent of students used the fastest mode of short stimulation/short response time, but had the lowest mean score on the four cognitive variables. (JN)

Focuses on the familiar problem of students' understanding of elementary electrical circuits from a much neglected point of view. Suggests that the patterning commonly found in students' ideas might have its roots in the cognitive processing with which students operate their mental models of d.c. electrical circuits. Studies Japanese 10-11 year…