The Society for Didactics of Chemistry and Physics honours outstanding dissertation

Oldenburg. Dr Susanne Heinicke, physicist and research associate at the University of Oldenburg, today received the Young Scientist Award of the Society for Chemistry and Physics Education (GDCP). The GDCP's Young Talent Award recognises particularly outstanding dissertations or post-doctoral theses in the field of chemistry education or physics education. It is endowed with 1,000 euros and was awarded to Heinicke at the GDCP's annual conference in Hanover.

"Learning from mistakes. A genetic-didactic reconstruction of the 'measurement error'" is the topic of her dissertation, which was supervised by Oldenburg physicist Dr Falk Riess. In her study, Heinicke analyses the handling of errors in measurement science. The physicist uses technical and historical analyses to show that dealing with the limited accuracy of experimental data still forms an essential basis of the way physics works today. With the help of online surveys, interviews and video studies, she has also analysed the understanding and processing of measurement errors by physics students. From these results, she developed didactic guidelines for an alternative treatment of measurement uncertainties in teaching.

Heinicke has been working in the "Didactics and History of Physics" working group at the university since the beginning of this year. She previously studied physics at the universities of Bonn, Cape Town and Oldenburg. The dissertation has been published by Logos-Verlag, Berlin.

[20.09.2012]