Teaching and learning special relativity theory in secondary and lower undergraduate education: A literature review

This review presents an overview and analysis of the body of research on special relativity theory (SRT) education at the secondary and lower undergraduate level. There is currently a growing international interest in implementing SRT in pre-university education as an introduction to modern physics. For this reason, insights into learning opportunities and challenges in SRT education are needed. The field of research in SRT education is still at an early stage, especially at the level of secondary education, and there is a shortage of empirical evaluation of learning outcomes. In order to guide future research directions, there is a need for an overview and synthesis of the results reported so far. We have selected 40 articles and categorized them according to reported learning difficulties, teaching approaches, and research tools. Analysis shows that students at all educational levels experience learning difficulties with the use of frames of reference, the postulates of SRT, and relativistic effects. In the reported teaching sequences, instructional materials, and learning activities, these difficulties are approached from different angles. Some teaching approaches focus on thought experiments to express conceptual features of SRT, while others use virtual environments to provide realistic visualization of relativistic effects. From the reported teaching approaches, three learning objectives can be identified: to foster conceptual understanding, to foster understanding of the history and philosophy of science, and to gain motivation and confidence toward SRT and physics in general. In order to quantitatively compare learning outcomes of different teaching strategies, a more thorough evaluation of assessment tools is required.

Figure 1

A flow chart of the selection process, indicating the number of selected articles for each step. The abbreviation SE stands for secondary education.

Figure 2

A schematic representation of students’ learning progression in a typical introductory course on SRT.

Figure 3

Schematic illustrations of typical scenarios for TEs in the following categories: (a) Galilean transformation, (b) principle of relativity, (c) light postulate, ($d_1$) and ($d_2$) relativity of simultaneity, (e) time dilation, length contraction, and relativistic velocity addition. See the text for further explanation of the scenarios.