Explanatory choices for beginning physics teachers "Mathematical efficiency" as a determining criterion

TL;DR

This paper examines how beginning physics teachers prioritize 'mathematical efficiency' over coherence and simplicity when evaluating explanations, highlighting its impact on teaching choices and implications for training.

Contribution

It introduces 'mathematical efficiency' as a new criterion influencing teachers' explanatory choices and analyzes its dominance over traditional criteria like coherence and simplicity.

Findings

Mathematical efficiency is a key criterion for some teachers.

Teachers may prioritize efficiency over coherence and simplicity.

Implications for teacher training and research are discussed.

Abstract

Recent investigations have been carried out on critical analyses of beginning physics teachers confronted with questionable explanations. These studies raise the question of the choices made by teachers for their teaching once they have become aware of one (or more) flaw(s) in the explanations analysed. This presentation will focus on the possible conflicts, for beginning teachers, between various selection criteria declared for their explanations, including: appropriateness (from the points of view of internal coherence, logical completeness and compliance with accepted physical laws) and simplicity. It will introduce the definition of "mathematical efficiency" as a criterion for assessing an explanation, on the basis of a study whose results show that it is a priority for some EDs even at the cost of coherence and of simplicity. The article concludes with the implications of the issues addressed for research and teacher training