Stockholm university

Jakob von GyllenpalmSenior lecturer

Research

 

 
 
 

Projects

Views about scientific inquiry (VASI)
 

Helping students develop informed views about scientific inquiry (SI) has been and continues to be a goal of K-12 science education. However, there is significantly less research on students’ understandings of SI than on the “doing” of inquiry. This is partly...

Collaborative development of practical work in upper secondary physics education
 

Practical work or laboratory work has a long tradition in physics education at all levels. However, teachers rarely have the time or means to develop new forms of teaching and assessment related to practical work. To cope with this situation most teachers use an inherited set ...

 


Collaborators

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Connecting two laboratory tasks under an umbrella of uncertainty

    2018. Jakob Gyllenpalm, Ulf Christiansson, Patrik Friggebo. Physics Education 53 (5)

    Article

    Laboratory work in physics has traditionally focused on the verification of facts, theories and laws. In contrast, this article describes how laboratory tasks can be used to promote students understanding about the nature of science and scientific inquiry. In the project reported here, students learn about measurement uncertainties and a simplified graphical method for propagating errors. By using this knowledge to compare the precision of two common methods to determine the spring constant, Hooke's Law and simple harmonic motion, students learn about the nature of experimentation in physics. From this specific example, comparisons can then be made with authentic research to highlight more general aspects of the nature of science and scientific inquiry.

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  • Inquiry and flow in science education

    2018. Jakob Gyllenpalm. Cultural Studies of Science Education 13 (2), 429-435

    Article

    Ellwood's and Abrams's paper, Students's social interaction in inquiry-based science education: how experiences of flow can increase motivation and achievement, describes two groups of students and their experiences in an extended inquiry unit. For one of these, the Off-Campus group, several educational aspects were enhanced compared with the group that stayed on campus for their fieldwork. In the analysis this was related to the nature and quality of students' social interactions during the project and their experiences of flow. This forum article seeks to expand and reframe some of the interpretations made by the authors concerning the role of time, place and attention for setting up conditions for experiences of flow in general, and in scientific inquiry in particular. A comparison with the result from research on wait-time is made, and the significance of place and social interactions are related to a typology of attention helpful for understanding Flow theory. It is suggested that an additional finding may be that there are certain moments in an inquiry unit where slowing down the tempo of instruction to allow for feedback and discussion is particularly important, because doing so can significantly alter the subsequent development and quality of students' social interactions, experiences of flow, and consequently learning. Implications for science teaching and teacher education are discussed.

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Show all publications by Jakob von Gyllenpalm at Stockholm University