How might educational research into children’s ideas about light be of use to teachers?

This paper offers a synthesis of research evidence around teaching light to primary and secondary school pupils, as part of the Institute of Physics (IOP) Promoting and Interpreting Physics Education Research (PIPER) project. Conceptual change literature describes many difficulties young people have with understanding the phenomenon of light, and this knowledge can be useful in the classroom. Pupil teacher dialogue is used to illustrate some of the pedagogical challenges teachers face in this topic. This paper highlights a range of influences on pupils from everyday life and from the classroom, with a view to promoting teacher awareness of conceptual change research evidence.

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