The Effect of Teaching History of Physics on Student-Teachers’ Understanding of the Process of Model Construction in Physics

To improve student teachers’ understanding of the process of model construction in Physics, it was hypothesized that teaching the history of Physics may be of help. To test this hypothesis, two groups of senior year female student-teachers in Teaching of Physics at one of the campuses of Farhangian University in Tehran were chosen: One group had passed a course on the history of Physics, while the other had not. A questionnaire consisting of questions at different levels of cognitive ability, with adequate validity and reliability, was completed by both groups. A t-test on the collected data showed a significant difference between the two groups. In other words, having passed the history course leads to a better understanding of the process of constructing models.