Program - Brookhaven National Laboratory

programs demanding only one compulsory course - workload from 60 to 90 hours to introduce and to form
the foundation of Nuclear Sciences for a wide range of professional backgrounds. Consequently Nuclear
Theory, its concepts and ideas have been briefly presented by this induction course which is intended to
be a friendly comprehensible start for a heterogeneous student community. Additionally, following a current
directive emphasized in the last years in many countries, graduate programs generically have limited
coursework requirements in order to reduce the time expectation of earning degree. Occasionally deeper
courses in Nuclear Theory have not been taught due to their non-compulsory status that has resulting in
low demand, not enough to set up classes. The sum of these facts sometimes may hold back physicists,
chemists and engineers to deepen their knowledge on specific matters of Nuclear Sciences especially those
demanding significant skills on Differential Calculus and Physics. This discussion paper is intended to
stimulate discussion and debate the lack of worldwide curricular guidelines for nuclear sciences students.
Some curricular structures are presented and discussed. Furthermore, it presented some initiatives of the
IAEA Nuclear Knowledge Management Subprogramme (NKM) to facilitating nuclear education, training
and information exchange [2].
[1] Avelar A.C. Nuclear engineering education in Brazil: Review and prospects DOI: 10.1007/s10967-
007-7282-8 Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 279, No.1 (2009) 349-354 [2] IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency Status and trend in Nuclear Education IAEA Nuclear Energy Series
No. Ng-T-6.1, Vienna, ISBN 978-92-0-109010-2. (2011) 227 pp.
PF 7 5:30 PM
Comparing Knowledge Based Views of Pre-Service Teachers with Experts on Nuclear
Physics
Jeanne Kriek, Ilsa Basson and Corene Coetzee
Univeristy of South Africa
“Socio-scientific” issues normally have their basis in the sciences but involve forming opinions and making
choices at personal or societal levels [1]. People are often either too worried or sometimes not worried due
to their lay conceptions on radiation and risk [2]. Reasons could be because debates on socio-scientific
issues are presented in the media but often in an unscientific way and this could lead to society forming
misconceptions about nuclear physics [1,2,3]. Our assumption is that student teachers who have more
content knowledge will demonstrate a better understanding of radiation physics because they had been
exposed to the topic for longer and in more depth. One way of assessing this assumption could be by
extending the knowledge base of an experimental group (n = 25) by equipping them with knowledge on
nuclear physics and comparing this to a control group (n = 36) who had no formal training on nuclear
physics. These participants were all pre-service teachers because they would be teaching the next generation
from a university in South Africa. Furthermore, 5 experts (2 nuclear energy engineers from industry
and 3 professors in physics) were asked to complete the same questionnaire to use as yardstick. A questionnaire
was used that was based on one developed by Colclough et al (2011) in their study to determine
pre-service teachers’ subject knowledge of and attitudes about radioactivity and ionizing radiation. All
respondents had to answer the 25 questions comprising of a 6 point lickert scale and indicate the reasons
for their answers. Only questions assessing knowledge of radiation in general and radiation applications
(8 of the 25) were considered in this study. Questions such as “A nuclear power plant even in perfect
working condition still emit dangerous levels of radiation to the environment; I would eat an apple that
had been placed close to a radioactive source; I would not eat a banana that had been placed near to a
radioactive source” were asked. It was found that the experimental group agreed in 6 of the 8 questions
with the experts. The 2 questions that they disagreed upon was the latter and “X-rays used in medical
246