Effectivity evaluation of experiments in physics education by memory retention

Abstract

Evaluating effectivity of various forms of experiments and practical work in physics lessons is a very complex problem. The goals that we as educators would like to achieve by practical work are broad. Examining all the aspects of practical work and evaluating them would be very difficult to do from a technical standpoint. It would be very time consuming, challenging to implement in normal school courses and in turn very costly. The aim of this study was a development of relatively simple method that would give insight into what methodologies of practical work are effective in teaching high school students’ conceptual knowledge. Based upon the framework for considering the effectiveness of a practical task proposed by Abrahams and Millar (2008), we believe that this information can be ascertained by examining which experiments students remember and to what extent. We expect that more effective methodologies of performing classroom experiments will leave more permanent and complex imprints in the student’s mind and therefore these experiments should not only be re-membered more often, but also to a greater detail. To this end a relatively short questionnaire was developed, consulted with experts and piloted, that focuses on finding out what types of experiments do students remember from the last six months of their physics education course. The Questionnaire is constructed in such a way, that it doesn’t specifically work with any part of physics curriculum and therefore can be used across all school institutions and all school years without any modifications. Validity of the data can and should be increased by cross-referencing gathered data with information gained by interviewing the teachers of the respondents. Gathered data should also allow us to map what general types of students exist in regard to their relation to practical work and if certain methodologies are more effective when used on different groups of students. Hopefully, these findings will give us some insight into what forms of practical work are actually effective and if so, then on what type of students.