One example of a research question that begs to be answered was discussed in Section 4.2, in which Galili
and his colleagues argued that students would better understand orbital motion and acquire fewer
misconceptions if weight was defined operationally as the reading on a scale rather than the force of
gravity on an object. Physics educators have debated this proposal for many years. Teachers and
curriculum developers would be very interested in the results of a definitive study that compared the two
approaches.