Research in Physics Education: A Study of Content Analysis

The current study is a content analysis of research in Physics education that was published between the years of 2008 and 2013 and was reached through the Turkish national academic network and information centre (ULAKBIM) and EBCSO. It is aimed to guide the researchers who are planning to conduct studies in this particular field by specifying tendencies of 105 articles on physics education in terms of their methods, subject areas, research titles, data analysis techniques, and sampling types. The data obtained from the study is presented with graphic, frequency and percentage tables. According to the research results, the physics education research was mostly carried out in 2013. When physics as subject titles is take into consideration, it is found that a large part of the studies are about mechanical physics and electric physics; however, when they are analyzed from the angle of their research titles, it seems that teaching methods and cognitive dimensions came into prominence. The findings of the study indicate that the majority of the physics education studies are quantitative in nature; achievement tests, interest tests, attitude tests and aptitude tests are mainly used as data collection instruments; a descriptive analysis method is used as data analysis method. Besides, the researchers preferred to choose their sample group from secondary school students and as a sample size they focused on groups of 31-100 students. The necessary recommendations are offered to the researchers of physics education in this study. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.