The Contribution of the History of Physics in Physics Education: A Review

Our research is focused on the selection, classification and comparative presentation of the various proposals concerning the contribution of the history of physics in physics education, that have been designed and/or carried out as part of either research or curriculum development during the last century. The framework of the classification is the result of the study of the aims of the teaching-learning of physics, as they have been presented since the 1960s, coupled with the current trends in science education, including discovery learning in the 1960s and constructivism nowadays. The study of the various proposals concerning the contribution of the history of physics in physics education revealed different points of view and led to the creation of new sub-categories of the initial framework. In an attempt to havea better overall view of the classification, we designed a chart so that the various proposals reported could be observed and commented on in a comparative way. The framework of the classification is presented on the vertical axis of a chart, while time from 1893, the year of the earliest referenceavailable (Lodge 1893), till today is presented on the horizontal axis.