Doing Science or Doing a Lab? Engaging Students with Scientific Reasoning during Physics Lab Experiments

Abstract

Undergraduate teaching labs often include expectations for students to use various sensemaking and reasoning behaviours when conducting an experiment. These expectations, however, are often unsupported in the explicit lab structure, and, as such, students develop distinctions between behaviours associated with "doing a lab" or "doing science." This study examines if and how students engage in reflection and evaluation of results during an experiment that involves two sources of systematic error. While many students reflected on their results and identified the source of the larger systematic error, very few did so for the smaller one. In fact, for the latter case, many students reported significantly inflated uncertainties, effectively hiding the systematic error altogether. We use these results, in-class observations, and post-lab interviews to describe how and why students failed to demonstrate authentic scientific inquiry behaviours during the lab.

Teaching critical thinking

“…With a focus on the quality of their data and how they could improve it, they came to believe that they are able to test and evaluate models. This is not just an acquisition of skills; it is an attitudinal and epistemological shift unseen in the control group or in other studies of instructional labs [11,12]. The training in how to think like an expert inherently teaches students how experts think and, thus, how experts generate knowledge [7].…”

Quantitative Comparisons to Promote Inquiry in the Introductory Physics Lab

“…This is a non-trivial experience given that many students expect to make poor quality measurements, especially poorer than expert physicsts. 2,6,12 The students also explore the limitations of physical models, recognizing that the physical world is often more complicated than what is presented. This experience sets them up for future model-based discussions about approximations that are made, either about the physical models or the measurement system.…”

“…2,3 Often, they perform lab experiments in a plug-and-chug frame, procedurally completing each activity with little to no sensemaking. 2,3 An emphasis on obtaining true theoretical values or agreement on individual measurements also reinforces inauthentic behaviours such as retroactively inflating measurement uncertainties. 2 This paper aims to offer a relatively simple pedagogical framework for engaging students authentically in experimentation and inquiry in physics labs.…”

“…This requires, especially in the case of analytical skills, high-levels of inquiry behaviours to reflect on data and iterate measurements, which students rarely do in lab experiments. 2,3 Often, they perform lab experiments in a plug-and-chug frame, procedurally completing each activity with little to no sensemaking. 2,3 An emphasis on obtaining true theoretical values or agreement on individual measurements also reinforces inauthentic behaviours such as retroactively inflating measurement uncertainties.…”

Measuring the impact of an instructional laboratory on the learning of introductory physics

“…Much of the research has explored student attitudes about labs, [15][16][17][18][19] student understanding of uncertainty, measurement, and data analysis, [20][21][22][23][24] and student development of scientific reasoning and experimentation skills. [25][26][27][28] The learning of the physics content, including the understanding and application of concepts, however remains a common goal of physics labs. Presumably, this is because many physicists see experimental research, both currently and in the past, as how physics knowledge is established, and so it is believed that replicating the discovery process will support student learning of the knowledge.…”