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This paper aims at exploring prospective physics teachers' reasoning associated with the concepts of reference frame, time and event which form the framework of the classical kinematics and that of the relativistic kinematics. About 100 prospective physics teachers were surveyed by means of a questionnaire involving classical kinematics situations and relativistic ones. The analysis of the answers shows a deep lack of understanding of both concepts of reference frame and event. Some students think that events may be simultaneous for an observer and not simultaneous for another one, even when both observers are located in the same reference frame. Most of the students surveyed cannot give an answer only depending on the location of the observer when his/her velocity is mentioned as if the movement contaminated the event. This lack of understanding is embodied in reasoning implemented by the population surveyed to address classical kinematics questions and seems to form a major obstacle to grasping relativistic kinematics.

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This research documents the aims and the impact of a teaching experiment on how the absorption of light depends on the thickness of the absorbing medium. This teaching experiment is more specifically characterized as bringing to bear a 'concept-driven interactive pathway'. It is designed to make students analyse the absorption of light by a medium as a selective multiplication (i.e. one depending on the wavelength) of the intensity by a factor smaller than one. Six teaching interviews conducted with fourth-year university students were recorded, transcribed and coded. Their analysis led us to evaluate the importance of the main obstacle expected, that is, of restricting the interpretation of absorption/transmission phenomena to the idea of 'less light', or, equivalently, of seeing a multiplication by a factor smaller than one as just a subtraction. The students' comments at the end of the interview introduce a discussion about the links between their intellectual satisfaction, critical attitude and comprehension of the topic.