USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications
Spending Time on Design: Does it Hurt Physics Learning?
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
2007
Abstract
This paper is the first in a series of three describing a controlled study “Transfer of scientific abilities”. The study was conducted in a large enrollment student introductory physics course taught via Investigative Science Learning Environment. Its goal was to find whether designing their own experiments in labs affects students’ approaches to experimental problem solving in new areas of physics and in biology, and their learning of physics concepts. The theoretical framework for the design of the study was based on transfer theories such as “preparation for future learning”, “actor-oriented transfer”, “transfer of situated learning’’ and “coordination classes”. In this paper we describe the design of the study and present data concerning the performance of experimental and control groups on multiplechoice and open-ended exam questions and on the lab exams that assess student understanding of the physics and the reasoning processes used in the lab experiments. We found that the experimental group outperformed the control on labbased and traditional exams and the difference increased as the year progressed. The project was supported by NSF grant DRL 0241078.
Language
en_US
Publisher
American Institute of Physics.
Recommended Citation
Etkina, E., Van Heuvelen, A., Karelina, A., Ruibal-Villasenor, M., & Rosengrant, D. (2007). Spending Time on Design: Does it Hurt Physics Learning? 2007 Physics Education Research Conference. Greensboro, NC, AIP Conference Proceeding, 951, 88-91, doi:10.1063/1.2820955
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Citation only. Preprint version of the article is available through licensed access provided by the publisher. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.