Front Matter

As a young science education researcher at Penn State in the mid-1990s with a background in pure physics (condensed matter—high temperature superconductivity), I was totally perplexed and worried about the future of my doctoral studies. I was new to the field and did not know where to turn for research ideas and, if I found one, how to validate the rationale. When I progressed further into my coursework, we were introduced to the handbooks that existed at the time: the Handbook of Research on Science Teaching and Learning (Gabel, 1994) and the International Handbook of Science Education (IHSE) (Fraser and Tobin, 1998). I was amazed by the breadth and depth of the chapters written by experts on each topic deemed to be of concern and be attractive to science education researchers. The sections and chapters outline the major research areas and a respective synthesis of research. Later, other handbooks followed, both those covering science education broadly [e.g., The Handbook of Research on Science Education (HRSE) (Abell and Lederman, 2007 and 2014) and The Second International Handbook of Science Education (Fraser, Tobin, McRobbie, 2012)], and others that covered specific topics in depth [e.g., The International Handbook of Research on Conceptual Change (Vosniadou, 2008) and The International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching (Matthews, 2014)].

While IHSE did not have chapters on specific science content areas (i.e., physics, chemistry, and biology), HRSE included such chapters in its “Science Teaching” section. Reinders Duit has been compiling a bibliography of science education for some decades and reporting percentages of published studies for each content area. In HRSE's “Teaching Physics” section, the authors (Duit et al.) reported that “… according to the bibliography on constructivist-oriented research on teaching and learning science by Duit (2009), about 53% of the studies documented were carried out in the domain of physics, 18% in the domain of biology, and 28% in the domain of chemistry.” To cut a long story short, having known the obvious advantages of handbooks and the fact that the field of physics education research has a high number of published studies, I envisioned editing a handbook dedicated to physics education research (PER). But the timing was also crucial, and I was thinking that it was ripening already in 2018.

Scholarly contributions to PER come from two types of researchers: those coming from a background of physics teaching and science education research studies in a college/faculty of education—and those coming from a background of college/university level physics teaching and PER in a department of physics. I mostly represent the former and I thought I needed a co-editor from the background of the latter. Although I had my doctoral degree from an American university, since 2001 I had resided in Türkiye and had become very active in European science education and physics education circles. Moreover, as an educator, I valued and practiced actions favoring inclusion and diversity throughout my professional life. I have cherished international collaborations and connections from around the world and always kept in mind that education and educational research is about enhancing human capacities.

With all these thoughts in my mind, and given the fact that American contributions to PER have been immense, I wanted to have a colleague from the USA co-edit the handbook with me. Thus, I decided to approach Paula Heron, who has a Ph.D. in Physics and is in a Physics department. We had already known each other for quite some time, and I very much respected and admired her contributions to PER, just like everyone else did in our field. I emailed Paula in early March of 2019. She was a keynote speaker at the GIREP conference that was going to be held in Budapest in early July of that year. Paula carefully considered my invitation to co-edit The International Handbook of Physics Education Research (IHPER) and within a few days responded, as she promised, with a positive answer. Committing oneself to a long-term project like this is indeed courageous and for that reason I am forever grateful to Paula for teaming up with me in this extremely important endeavor, the value of which I am confident will be appreciated in the years to come.

Paula and I could be a successful team of co-editors once we set clear goals and plans, show strong leadership to achieve those goals, fulfill our own tasks, and also help each other communicate openly, resolve emerging conflicts constructively, and feel that each one of us is directly contributing to the handbook's success. All of these became true over the course of the creation of IHPER. I am forever grateful to Paula for being such a wonderful colleague and co-editor.

In Budapest, we met and talked about some of the details of the project. Also, since many PER people were already there, it was a precious opportunity for us to open the project to potential contributors, collect their ideas, and seek ways to involve them in IHPER. The next steps were to form a structure and organization for IHPER and find a publisher. Later, we formed an international advisory board to share the idea of IHPER and their views about the draft structure and organization. As a result, we received much praise and positive feedback. Among our efforts to find a publisher for IHPER, we finally contacted the AAPT Committee on Publications, who had an agreement with the American Institute of Physics (AIP) to publish books. AIP Publishing reviewed our proposal for IHPER and in July 2020, we signed a contract.

For IHPER to deserve the “international” character in its name, we wanted to include colleagues with extensive experience in PER from around the world. Another aspect was to have diverse teams of co-authors, such as relatively new and relatively experienced ones, and ones from different countries (or better, whenever possible, from different continents). In addition, we wanted to share not only the responsibility and workload but also the joy and pride of creating IHPER with respected PER colleagues. Therefore, we decided to have section editors collaborate with us in identifying chapter authors and tracking progress. To a large degree, our scheme worked.

It is important to note that the development of the IHPER took place during a time of tremendous upheaval and uncertainty. The global Covid-19 pandemic presented editors, authors, and reviewers with unanticipated challenges in maintaining high standards while meeting publisher deadlines. While schools and businesses were closed and lockdowns were ordered, we all experienced difficult times. But, the work had to go on. Paula and I held weekly online video meetings and had meetings with section editors. It was a big challenge to organize it since we were spread out around the world. Nevertheless, things worked out well. Afterwards, we communicated frequently with the section editors to respond to their questions, to provide initial editorial reviews for submitted first drafts of chapters, to recruit reviewers, and anything else that came along.

Initially, I was in Türkiye and Paula was in the U.S. During the last year, we switched continents. She came to Europe for a sabbatical, while I moved to the U.S. We still had several hours of time difference, but it did not stop us from working together in accordance with our determination to successfully complete IHPER. That was our great responsibility to so many who vested trust in us and have been devoting their time and efforts as section editors, authors, and reviewers with diligence, motivation, and ambition.

Now, we have the final manuscript, which consists of three volumes organized into 12 sections, with a total of 69 chapters. Nineteen section editors and 170 authors contributed and benefited from the expertise of many external reviewers. Section editors, contributors and reviewers represent countries from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. As general editors, we are greatly thankful to all.

M. Fatih Taşar

Georgia State University

Atlanta, GA, USA

Coming from a physics background with a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics, and entering the field of PER as a postdoc, handbooks were not a significant part of my early professional development. In the mid-1990s, when I joined the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington (then under the leadership of Lillian C. McDermott), the field seemed small enough that everyone knew everyone else (at least in the U.S.) and you could pick up the phone or send an email to inquire about what they were up to. The literature was relatively sparse, especially concerning university-level teaching, and most researchers were intimately familiar with a small set of seminal papers. Since then, the field has grown enormously and I have come to appreciate the value of review articles, such as those found in handbooks. In my role as an Associate Editor of Physical Review—PER, it has frequently been the case that I have needed a quick overview of a particular area of research. This, more than anything else, convinced me that a handbook for PER would be an invaluable resource for our field. I am grateful that Fatih approached me about this project, which seemed ambitious at first, but has grown into something even bigger than I think either of us imagined. I am also deeply appreciative of all of the effort that has gone into it, especially by the section editors, without whom the project would not have been possible.

Paula R. L. Heron

University of Washington

Seattle, WA, USA

This handbook would not be possible without the support, suggestions, critiques, and contributions of a large number of people. First and foremost, we are grateful for the work of the section editors who recruited and supported authors, reviewed chapters, and wrote section overviews: Marisa Michelini, Italy; Shulamit Kapon, Israel; Olivia Levrini, Italy; Edit Yerushalmi, Israel; Bat Sheva Eyon, Israel; Sarantos Psycharis, Greece; Eugenia Etkina, USA; Eric Brewe, USA; Eilish McLoughlin, Ireland; Feral Ogan Bekiroglu, Turkiye; Geraldine Cochran, USA; Don Metz, Canada; Peter Heering, Germany; Cibelle Celestino Silva, Brazil; Marika Kapanadze, Georgia; Gabriela Jonas-Ahrend, Germany; Gesche Pospiech, Germany; and David Meltzer, USA. The results are a credit to their efforts. Early in the process we received invaluable suggestions from a small group of advisors: Richard Gunstone, Australia; David Hestenes, USA; the late Norman G. Lederman, USA; Marcia Linn, USA; Robin Millar, UK; E. F. (Joe) Redish, USA; the late Laurence Viennot, France; and the late Lillian C. McDermott, USA. Blane Baker (then AAPT Secretary) and Laura McCullough (then Chair of the AAPT Books Advisory Committee) were instrumental in securing the sponsorship of the AAPT. Martine Felton, Michael Lynch, and Dina Rabie at AIP Publishing worked with us to prepare the manuscript.

We are also grateful for the review efforts and invaluable feedback provided for improving the manuscripts in this volume by the following colleagues:

Section I

Alexis Knaub, American Association of Physics Teachers, USA

Ramón Barthelemy, University of Utah, USA

Diana Sachmpazidi, University of Maryland, USA

Jacquelyn J. Chini, University of Central Florida, USA

Erin M. Scanlon, University of Connecticut

Sonja Cwik, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Chandralekha Singh, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Section II

Peter Heering, Institute of Mathematical, Scientific and Technical Literacy, Europa-

Universitaet Flensburg, Germany

Donald J. Metz, University of Winnipeg, Canada

Cibelle Celestino Silva, Instituto de Fisica de Sao Carlos, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil

Section III

Hendrik Haertig, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Peter Labudde, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, School of Teacher Education, Switzerland

Yaron Lehavi, The David Yellin Academic College of Education, Israel

Charles Ruggieri, Department of Physics and Astronomy, School of Arts and Sciences. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA

Section IV

Marco Caballero, Michigan State University, USA

Mieke de Cock, KU Leuven, Belgium

Tor Ole Odden, University of Oslo, Norway

Section V

Andrew F. Heckler, The Ohio State University, USA

Steven Pollock, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

Eric Brewe, Drexel University, USA

Robert Talbot, University of Colorado, Denver, USA

Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers University, USA

Andrew Boudreaux, Western Washington University, USA

Trevor Smith, Rowan University, USA

Jaume Ametller

Department of Specific Didactics, University of Girona, Spain

Hillary Diane Andales

MIT Edgerton Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Katrin Bölsterli Bardy

University of Teacher Education Lucerne, CH-6003 Lucerne, Switzerland

Ramón S. Barthelemy

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA

Jennifer Blue

Department of Physics, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, USA

Elizabeth Mary Cavicchi

MIT Edgerton Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Yongwook Cheong

Department of Physics Education, Gyeongsang National University, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea

Jacquelyn J. Chini

Department of Physics, College of Sciences, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA

Sonja Cwik

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA

Thaís Cyrino de Mello Forato

Federal University of Sao Paolo—Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil

Isabelle Priscila Carneiro de Lima

Federal Institute of Bahia, Bahia, Brazil

Lin Ding

Department of Teaching and Learning, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA

Elias Euler

Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA

Gabriela Kaiana Ferreira

Physics Department, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

Johannes Grebe-Ellis

School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany

Bor Gregorcic

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden

Sascha Grusche

University Library, Technical University of Munich, D-80333 München, Germany

Andreia Guerra

Graduate and Research Department, CEFET/RJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Jenaro Guisasola

Department of Applied Physics, School of Engineering Gipuzkoa, University of the Basque, Country (UPV/EHU), Donostia, Spain

Ivã Gurgel

Physics Institute, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Jesper Haglund

Department of Engineering and Physics, Karlstad University, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden

David Hammer

Department of Education and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA

John Hansen

Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506, USA

Danielle Boyd Harlow

Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-9490, USA

Yuze He

Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

Larry V. Hedges

Department of Statistics and Data Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA

Lana Ivanjek

TU Dresden, Haeckelstraße 3, 01069 Dresden, Germany

Hunkoog Jho

Graduate School of Education, Dankook University, Gyeonggi-do 16890, South Korea

Gabriela Jonas-Ahrend

Department of Technology Didactics, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany

Fadeel Joubran

Department of Physics, The Academic Arab College for Education, Haifa 3442600, Israel

Calvin S. Kalman

Department of Physics, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Marika Kapanadze

Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

Ricardo Avelar Sotomaior Karam

Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Minchul Kim

Department of Physics Education, Kongju National University, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea

Alexis V. Knaubn

American Association of Physics Teachers, USA

Xiying Li

Key Laboratory of Modern Teaching Technology, Ministry of Education, 710062, People's Republic of China

Alexander Mazzolini

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

David E. Meltzer

College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University, Mesa, Arizona 85212, USA

Riley S. Moeykens

MIT Edgerton Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Valerie K. Otero

School of Education, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0249, USA

Oliver Passon

School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany

Xiaomei Ping

Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

Maja Planinic

Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Bijenicka c. 32, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Gesche Pospiech

Faculty of Physics, TU Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany

Diana Sachmpazidi

Department of Physics, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA

Paulo Sarriugarte

Department of Applied Physics, School of Engineering Bilbao, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain

Erin M. Scanlon

Department of Physics, University of Connecticut—Avery Point, Groton, Connecticut 06340, USA

Roland M. Schulz

CIRCE SFU, 1558 Roxbury Rd, North Vancouver, Vancouver, British Columbia, V7G 1X7, Canada

Chandralekha Singh

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA

Josip Slisko

Facultad de Ciencias Físico Matemáticas, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

Lorena Solvang

Department of Engineering and Physics, Karlstad University, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden

Jinwoong Song

Department of Physics Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Richard Staley

Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3RH, United Kingdom

Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

John Stewart

Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506, USA

Alexander Strahl

University of Salzburg, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria

Ana Susac

Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Unska 3, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Madison Swirtz

University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA

Joseph A. Taylor

Department of Leadership, Research, and Foundations, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80918, USA

Adrienne L. Traxler

Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Jingying Wang

Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

Xiaomei Yan

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

Gábor Á. Zemplén

Institute of Business Economics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Danhua Zhou

Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

Dean Zollman

Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA

Kristina Zuza

Department of Applied Physics, School of Engineering Gipuzkoa, University of the Basque, Country (UPV/EHU), Donostia, Spain