PER draws from other disciplines, such as sociology, cognitive science, education and linguistics, [1] and complements them by reflecting the disciplinary knowledge and practices of physics.
[2] Approximately eighty-five institutions in the United States conduct research in science and physics education.
Like students who hold this misconception, Newton arrived at his three laws of motion through empirical analysis, although he did it with an extensive study of data that included astronomical observations.
The broad goal of the PER community is to understand the processes involved in the teaching and learning of physics through rigorous scientific investigation.
The latter provides a snapshot of the field and as such is open to preliminary results and research in progress, as well as papers that would simply be thought-provoking to the PER community.