Firsthand or secondhand data in school labs: It does not make a difference

Burkhard Priemer,Tobias Ludwig,Stephan Pfeiler

doi:10.1103/physrevphyseducres.16.013102

Abstract

We report the findings of an empirical study that investigated whether the source of data—firsthand or secondhand data gained from lab work experiments—has an influence on students’ learning outcomes. Results indicate that students’ choice of a correct or incorrect hypothesis for a pendulum lab experiment on the influence of the mass of the bob on the time of oscillation does not depend on who the author of the data at hand is: the student themself, a peer, or a teacher. Further, students judge the importance of the data’s author as relatively unimportant no matter what data source they have at hand. Thus, it seems fairly unimportant whether students use firsthand or secondhand data when the teaching focus is set on choosing a correct hypothesis in the light of empirical data, as long as students get enough information on how the data were generated and how they are analyzed and interpreted. This result is especially relevant for practitioners, as it shows that it is possible to use secondhand data for the purpose of evaluation and interpretation without significant distortions of epistemic learning processes.Received 26 June 2019Accepted 27 January 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.013102Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasConcepts & principlesLearning environmentScientific reasoning & problem solvingPhysics Education Research

Highlights

Analyzing and interpreting data, including but not limited to lab work, is a core topic in 21st century science education [1]
We report the findings of an empirical study that investigated whether the source of data—firsthand or secondhand data gained from lab work experiments—has an influence on students’ learning outcomes
To give an answer to the research question, we looked at those 34 students that had an incorrect initial hypothesis

Summary

Introduction

Analyzing and interpreting data, including but not limited to lab work, is a core topic in 21st century science education [1]. It is assumed that this involvement in the data acquisition process supports learning: for example, data ownership may lead to a better data analysis [2], a more careful planning of investigations [3], a deeper understanding and better learning outcomes [4], and more interest in science [5]. Students may distrust their own data, and by doing so, become uncertain about how to interpret the gained results [6]. This may lead students to rely more on prior knowledge or beliefs than on the data at hand [2,7]. A student may trust the results of others [8,9] and may avoid their own active involvement in the task [10]

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Results

Conclusion