Background

As a first year experience project funded by the PVC (E & QI) Professor Adrian Lee, Kate Wilson conducted an evaluation of the student experience of learning in first-year physics. This evaluation was focused on learning physics generally. It covered lectures, tutorials and assessment and, more specifically, laboratory work as this had been previously identified by staff and students as needing improvement. The evaluation was carried out by 'online diaries' using a WebCT discussion to gather the data. Fifteen students from a range of first year Physics courses responded to open-ended questions each week during the semester, to describe their learning experiences that week. A survey was also used to gather data.

Results of the evaluation revealed that the majority of the student respondents thought that the laboratory practicals were boring and repetitive. These were seen as a source of easy marks, but not an activity from which they learned very much. It was apparent that some students did not even understand the point of the experiment. Students liked the fact that they worked together in the laboratories, and they preferred laboratory practicals to lectures as they were more interactive. The overall evaluation of the process that affected student learning, however, revealed that students simply followed the procedure in laboratory practicals without learning very much. It was decided that laboratory courses had to change, to engage the students more and to develop a more active learning process.

The following quote from a student illustrates the difficulty: "Our teacher simply told us to get a number off the screen, put it into a formula ... and out pops a completely meaningless number that is somehow important to us getting our marks, even though it obviously wasn't important enough to explain".

Links

Video Clip on background to the project: High Resolution

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The strategy

It was decided to introduce a group project into first year physics laboratory courses. The reasons for this approach were:

• the first year teaching laboratory was designed for group work and the evaluation revealed that students appreciated working together.

• Developments in teaching physics overseas have revealed benefits from involving students in collaborative activities.

• Students need to learn to think like a scientist, and scientific work is typically done in collaborative groups.

The idea was tried in one laboratory course -- -- in session two, 2002.

Description of the practical task?

Both staff and students were pleased with this trial. The staff observed a much greater level of interest and enthusiasm for the task and were pleased with the results of the experiments, reports, and presentations. Ongoing evaluation revealed that the students were genuinely enthusiastic about the activity and saw this as an opportunity to become involved with an interesting task which they thought of as an improvement over their normal labs. Group projects were implemented so that all Physics students did a group project in a laboratory course in 2003.

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Application of educational technologies

The 'online diary' consisted of a discussion in WebCT. The students logged in to this on a regular basis to respond to a range of open-ended questions. These were posted for the students each week, with some variation depending upon what was happening in the course. The WebCT survey tool was also used to gather data. The online diary proved to be a valuable way to gather data as the students responded at the appropriate times and no transcription was needed.

NVIVO software was used to handle the open-ended text responses and to sort these into themes and topics and quanitfy the responses on each topic.

In first-year physics a major issue is large numbers. A WebCT site was set up for each physics laboratory course with details of the project task, how to work in groups, how the group should decide on a project, the range of equipment available for use, the role of the demonstrators, and the final report and presentation. An online discussion was set up for each group. These were there to support the group process, however they were not used by many of the groups as the students could meet in the laboratory time, as well as meeting on campus at any other time. Material on group processes was made available to the students by a link to the EDTeC website -- --

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Outcomes and benefits for students

Students gain experience of scientific inquiry by doing the projects. While this causes some problems of adjustment from very specific tasks to an open ended one, most students overcame the difficulties to engage with the tasks of researching, designing the experiment, writing a proposal, carrying out the research, writing a report and making a presentation. Students appreciate the opportunity to participate in a real project in which they decide for themselves what they want to investigate and design the experiment themselves. They also appreciate the chance to work together (although group work can be a problem for some students). Students gain the opportunity to participate in the process of scientific inquiry.

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Problems encountered

The very large number of students engaged in this activity means that strict controls needed to be placed on the available equipment to use for the activity (unless the students arrange equipment for themselves).

Some laboratory demonstrators were unprepared for a role as a facilitator of group process rather than as an instructor. Many found it difficult and threatening to deal with students who had formed their own ideas and researched the topic to a point where they knew much more about it than the demonstrator. A greater level of tutor training and support was needed.

Some students had difficulties with group work as they did not necessarily agree with or get along with the other members of the group. There were some complaints about group members not making a real contribution to the group activities. This creates some management problems associated with group work.

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Evaluation

This project started with an evaluation of Physics laboratory courses to identify student attitudes to courses at that time. During the following session the group projects were introduced on a trial basis in one course, to see if they would improve the student experience and overcome some of the problems identified in the initial evaluation. In this session the range of questions asked in the online diaries was expended to include experiences of other aspects of the program, lectures, tutorials, and the laboratory copmponent that was not concerned with projects.

Table 1 Comments on the main course components

Table 1 outlines the number of positive and negative comments about each aspect of the program, including the trial introduction of the projects. These data indicate strong support for the projects as a learning enhancement.

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