This contribution mainly focuses on the views of leading Czech physicists regarding a physics curriculum for upper secondary schools. It introduces the first and second parts of an effort to define starting points for a new physics curriculum in Czechia and create a new physics textbook for upper secondary schools. The methodology of the first part of our research was inspired especially by the objectivist grounded theory. We conducted in‐depth interviews with 29 leading Czech physicists and identified 56 ideas (categories) that they agreed on (according to the interview analysis). Subsequently, a questionnaire was created based on these 56 ideas. Two years later, the same group of physicists were asked to express their opinions on the ideas on a 7‐point Likert scale. The new survey sought to clarify the relevance and permanence of the ideas, and the physicists’ willingness to collaborate on constructing a physics curriculum for upper secondary schools. Four core categories—students, physics, context, and math—were identified through a comparison of the relevance of the ideas. Additionally, we compared the questionnaire answers of a physicist with their opinions during the interview and identified 43 ideas as permanent (in the 2‐year interval). Surprisingly, 26 of the 29 researchers in the initial study completed the subsequent questionnaire survey and 13 among these expressed their willingness to contribute to the development of a physics textbook for upper secondary schools.
Furthermore in the second part, this contribution deals with the views of three other groups of stakeholders—scientists from other related fields (32), physics teachers from upper secondary schools (539), and physics teacher educators (31)—regarding the physics curricula for upper secondary schools. The research questions are as follows: To what extent are the ideas of leading physicists regarding physics curricula acceptable to scientists from other related fields, physics teachers, and physics teacher educators? Are the opinions of physics teachers who know they are commenting on leading physicists’ ideas different from those of physics teachers who do not? This part of study used quantitative and descriptive methods and was based on the aforementioned questionnaire. Statistical analysis led to the creation of seven indices that included 42 of the original 56 categories (items): classical physics branches, modern physics branches, methods used in physics, context, encouragement, width and depth, and students’ cognition. Only in 24% of the cases the evaluations by other groups were statistically significantly different from those by leading physicists (within indices encouragement and modern physics branches). Similarly, in only 12% of the cases, the evaluations by other groups were different from those by leading physicists concerning the remaining 14 items. The statistical analysis also did not identify a reasonable difference between teachers who knew they commented on leading physicists’ ideas and those who did not. Statistically significant differences were found in only two items (out of 56) of the questionnaire. There is a strong consensus on what the physics curriculum for upper secondary schools should be, which can be seen as a promising starting point when developing a new physics (or science) curriculum and implementing it in education.