The limitations of mathematical modeling in high school physics education

The theme of the doctoral dissertation falls within the scope of didactics of physics. Theoretical analysis of the key constraints that occur in the transmission of mathematical modeling of dynamical systems into field of physics education in secondary schools is presented. In an effort to explore the extent to which current physics education promotes understanding of models and modeling, we analyze the curriculum and the three most commonly used textbooks for high school physics. We focus primarily on the representation of the various stages of modeling in the solved tasks in textbooks and on the presentation of certain simplifications and idealizations, which are in high school physics frequently used. We show that one of the textbooks in most cases fairly and reasonably presents the simplifications, while the other two half of the analyzed simplifications do not explain. It also turns out that the vast majority of solved tasks in all the textbooks do not explicitly represent model assumptions based on what we can conclude that in high school physics the students do not develop sufficiently a sense of simplification and idealizations, which is a key part of the conceptual phase of modeling.;For the introduction of modeling of dynamical systems the knowledge of students is also important, therefore we performed an empirical study on the extent to which high school students are able to understand the time evolution of some dynamical systems in the field of physics. The research results show the students have a very weak understanding of the dynamics of systems in which the feedbacks are present. This is independent of the year or final grade in physics and mathematics.;When modeling dynamical systems in high school physics we also encounter the limitations which result from the lack of mathematical knowledge of students, because they don't know how analytically solve the differential equations. We show that when dealing with one-dimensional dynamical systems geometrical approach to solving differential equations is appropriate, while in dynamical systems of higher dimensions mathematical constraints are avoided by using a graphical oriented programs for modeling. Because in dealing with dynamical systems with four or more dimensions we may encounter problems in numerical solving, we also show how to overcome them. In the case of electrostatic pendulum we show the process of modeling the real dynamical system and we put a particular emphasize on the different phases of modeling and on the way of overcoming constraints on which we encounter in the development of the model.