Designing Experiments: Student Learning Experience and Behaviour in Undergraduate Physics Laboratories

TL;DR

This study analyzes how increasing inquiry levels in undergraduate physics labs, especially through student-designed experiments, enhances learning experiences and behaviors, supported by qualitative and quantitative transcript analysis.

Contribution

It demonstrates that higher inquiry levels, particularly student-designed experiments, significantly improve learning outcomes in physics laboratories.

Findings

Open inquiry enhances student engagement and understanding.

Student-designed experiments lead to better learning outcomes.

Increasing inquiry levels positively impacts student behavior.

Abstract

We investigated physics students' learning experience and behaviour in a second-year laboratory by analyzing transcribed audio recordings of laboratory sessions. One student group was given both a problem and procedure and asked to analyze and explain their results. Another was provided with only the problem and asked to design and execute the experiment, interpret the data, and draw conclusions. These two approaches involved different levels of student inquiry and they have been described as guided and open inquiry respectively. The latter gave students more opportunities to practice "designing experiments," one of the six major learning outcomes in the recommendations for the undergraduate physics laboratory curriculum by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). Qualitative analysis was performed of the audio transcripts to identify emergent themes and it was augmented by quantitative analysis for a richer understanding of students' experiences. An important finding is that significant improvements can be made to undergraduate laboratories impacting both student learning experience and behaviour by increasing the level of inquiry in laboratory experiments. This is most easily achieved by requiring students to design their own experimental procedures.