Development of Data Processing Skills of Physics Students in Intermediate Laboratory Courses

Abstract

Laboratory courses are an essential part of physics education, and the need for learning goals that focus on laboratory skills rather than physics contents has recently been emphasized. We evaluated the effect of skills-oriented laboratory courses on data processing skills with the Concise Data Processing Assessment (CDPA). Though no overall improvement occurred, changes in answering patterns in CDPA occurred. The students showed favourable shifts in their answer patterns for items dealing with fitting errors but small declines in identifying power laws in data. This is likely due to course curriculum, which emphasized fitting. Although the sample size is small, the results indicate that CDPA answers can provide information on learning of specific topics even if changes in the overall score are minimal. The measured data processing skills did not correlate with expert-like attitudes (as measured by the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics) or course grades.