An instructor who holds the broadcast model of student learning may be satisfied with the results, despite the fact that little real learning has taken place. After a few years of this, expectations for learning can become disappointingly low. A second barrier arises from the lack of communication between instructional faculty and learning specialists. If advances produced by researchers in the learning sciences are to produce change in faculties in the discipline of physics, information must flow between the groups. For example, very few physics faculty are aware of results from educational research on group learning or learning styles.
Communication tends to be difficult for a number of reasons.
Physicists and cognitive scientists speak different languages. Both sides often assume a large vocabulary and a number of technical concepts. Reading the literature in the learning sciences is difficult for physicists. The fundamental technical terminology is complex and may be used by different workers in different ways. Reading the literature in physics is difficult for educational specialists.