External mediation educational resources for teaching General Relativity: A systematic review

Maira Giovana de Souza; Agostinho Serrano; David Treagust

doi:10.36681/tused.2025.029

Authors

Maira Giovana de Souza Lutheran University of Brazil
Agostinho Serrano Lutheran University of Brazil
David Treagust Curtin University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36681/tused.2025.029

Keywords:

Educational technologies, Teaching resources, External mediation, Physics, General Relativity

Abstract

Modern and Contemporary Physics is an important component of civic education for senior high school students, as topics such as Relativity and Quantum Physics connect with everyday life and foster abstract thinking and critical skills. Yet, these themes are often absent from high school curricula. Among them, Einstein’s General Relativity Theory (GR) stands out: when presented, it usually sparks strong student interest. This paper aims to support GR teaching through a systematic literature review that identifies accessible resources for high school classrooms. The review is framed by the Cognitive Mediation Networks Theory (CMNT), focusing on its external mediation levels. Searches were conducted in ERIC, Scopus, Google Scholar, and SciELO, targeting studies reporting resources that are both accessible and manipulatable, enabling students’ external information processing. Thirty studies met the criteria, comprising resources across psychophysical (14), social (2), cultural (4), hypercultural (10), and sophotechnic (2) mediations. These ranged from physical models, analogies, and collaborative discussions to cultural artefacts, simulations, and AI chatbots. Some gaps were identified: several studies described GR resources without robust empirical testing, while others offered limited evaluation. This suggests that GR teaching at the high school level is still at an early stage. The review highlights the diversity of educational technologies available and their potential to expand students’ cognitive capacity through CMNT mediations. Although centred on a specific topic, the mediation-focused analysis proposed here offers a model for identifying effective instructional technologies applicable to teaching other complex theoretical concepts.

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Author Biographies

Maira Giovana de Souza, Lutheran University of Brazil

Maira G. de Souza is a PhD student at the Post-Graduate Program of Science and Mathematics Teaching at Lutheran University of Brazil and a visiting PhD student at School of Education at Curtin University. She is conducting research on high school students’ learning of Relativity Theory by investigating their conceptions and mental representations using multiple representations approach. She worked as Physics teacher for seven years.
Agostinho Serrano, Lutheran University of Brazil

Agostinho Serrano is Full Professor at the Post-Graduate Program of Science and Mathematics Teaching at Lutheran University of Brazil. He is currently conducting research on gestural analysis methodology and mental representations in the learning of scientific concepts, and acquisition of scientific representations through information technology (IT).
David Treagust, Curtin University

David Treagust is John Curtin Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University. He supervises research students on topics related to understanding students’ ideas about science concepts and how these ideas relate to conceptual change and multiple representations, the design of science curricula and teachers’ classroom practices.

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