Description
Physics lab courses have become an integral part of physics education. Recent studies have suggested that labs in physics education have little impact on learning, particularly when intended to reinforce content knowledge, which becomes the most widely adopted goal. This encourages institutions to reevaluate the implementation of physics lab courses, since they are time-consuming, demanding, and resource intensive. In response to this issue, our study proposes a research-generated framework for developing lab activities and lab equipment that is grounded in educational theories, practices and technologies. We work closely with physics educators to define, implement, evaluate, and refine the model in educational practices through a cyclical process. Our framework consists of six major sequential phases: outline goals, identify student background knowledge, develop lab activities and equipment, implement lab, evaluate and improve, review context. This framework provides guidelines for educators and researchers to design lab activities and lab equipment in physics education that properly address the contextual educational issues. It allows educators to select the main aim of the lab with their advantages and limitations such as theory-confirmation or critical thinking/scientific skills. An output of using our model is relevant pre-lab activities to equip students with prerequisite knowledge/skills. We emphasise a range of lab types such as hands-on, remote, virtual, DIY (Do It Yourself). Intentional use of these depending on context can help achieve best learning outcomes. In this study, we also demonstrate how this framework has been recently implemented at the University of Newcastle for a lab exploring the Inverse Square Law of Radioactivity. A statistical difference is shown in the learning outcomes between students who used the old version and the new version (developed using our model) although the variability ranges overlapped.
| I am the presenting author | Yes |
|---|