Understanding the nature of students’ experience of pre-university practical work in physics

Abstract

Introductory practical work in university physics degrees is dominated by highly constrained and instructions-based tasks with limited value for developing students’ scientific and critical thinking skills. One possible explanation for this may be the assumptions made about new students’ prior experiences. Over the course of 5 years, approximately 800 first year physics students completed a simple survey of the nature of their prior experiences of physics practical work. An informative means of presenting the data and understanding their experiences as either passive or practical, or in terms of their freedom to make decisions, is developed. Most new undergraduate students have some experience of decision making in relation to physics practical work, which should be incorporated into course design. The data also indicates that different education systems provide different opportunities for decision making, illustrating the need to align practical training at a local level.