ABSTRACT:The procedural understanding of university students at the freshman level, prior to instruction, has been investigated in the context of experimental work in physics. A written instrument was used to explore students' ideas about data collection, data processing, and data comparison; in particular, the need to repeat measurements and the implications of the scatter associated with numerical and graphical data. Two types of reasoning used by students in the laboratory, viz. point and set reasoning, are proposed and used to classify students' responses. The findings show a high degree of consistency of these modes of reasoning across the experimental phases of data collection and data processing. A framework is suggested from which a laboratory teaching program may be developed.
Traditionally physics laboratory courses at the freshman level have aimed to demonstrate various principles of physics introduced in lectures. Experiments tend to be quantitative in nature with experimental and data analysis techniques interwoven as distinct strands of the laboratory course.1 It is often assumed that, in this way, students will end up with an understanding of the nature of measurement and experimentation. Recent research studies have, however, questioned this assumption.2,3 They have pointed to the fact that freshmen who have completed physics laboratory courses are often able to demonstrate mastery of the mechanistic techniques (e.g., calculating means and standard deviations, fitting straight lines, etc.) but lack an appreciation of the nature of scientific evidence, in particular the central role of uncertainty in experimental measurement. We believe that the probabilistic approach to data analysis, as advocated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), will result in a more coherent framework for teaching measurement and measurement uncertainty in the introductory physics laboratory course.
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