Abstract
There are diverse teaching methodologies to promote both collaborative and individual work in undergraduate physics courses. However, few educational studies seek to understand how students learn and apply new knowledge through open-ended activities that require mathematical modeling and experimentation focused on environmental problems. Here, we propose a novel home experiment to simulate the dynamics of a flue gas under temperature inversion and model it as damped harmonic motion. After designing and conducting the experiment, twenty six first year students enrolled in STEM majors answered six qualitative questions to inform us about their epistemological beliefs regarding their learning process. Their answers imply that this type of open-ended experiments may facilitate students’ understanding of physical phenomena and point to the significance of physics instructors as promoters of epistemological development. In general, students described this activity as a positive experience that helped them connect an environmental phenomenon with a fundamental physics concept.
Highlights
Finding strategies to promote student engagement in introductory physics courses is a challenge of our times
We present a simple experiment that allows STEM students to simulate an isobaric troposphere to explore, for example, the relation between damped harmonic motion and the dynamics of a particulate under temperature inversion at home
Students in our research showed that they expected instructions from their professors in order to design the experiment following what they have previously learned and practiced in classes. They were open to follow different methodologies to design and develop their experiment, but they stated that the guidance from an expert is the key to success in this type of open-ended activities. This may be related to a low level of epistemological maturity for college level students [73], where they need to learn new knowledge and ways to apply it from an epistemological authority that is considered the only source of reliable information [11]
Summary
Finding strategies to promote student engagement in introductory physics courses is a challenge of our times. It becomes a place to learn theoretical concepts as well as to conduct experiments [2,3]. This methodology increases student engagement in physics courses and improves conceptual understanding through manipulation of instruments and materials [3,4] to generate and process experimental data [5]. A well designed experiment may help STEM students develop self-regulated learning strategies [4,6,7], giving them the opportunity to build their own conclusions and boost their knowledge about physical phenomena and its interpretation [8]. Self-regulation and motivation is usually driven by epistemic beliefs [9,10] that describe the way students think about the nature of knowledge and knowing [11]
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