Multidimensional Perceptions of Physics

Abstract

The current study was designed to determine how physics is perceived by students and members of the public. It was carried out in four phases, including an online survey, and offline survey, semi-structured interviews, and a focus group discussion. The online survey was conducted with 564 people from different ages and occupations to identify their perception of physics. The offline survey was conducted with 22 undergraduate physics students whose future professions will be in physics. The semi-structured interviews were conducted with four undergraduate science students, and a focus group discussion with six physics graduates was conducted to determine their perception of physics. A qualitative descriptive research approach was applied to collect and analyze the data. The results of the study showed that people perceived physics in different ways; however, their views were connected to the definition of science in general.