What do they know? Investigating students’ ability to analyse experimental data in secondary physics education

Abstract

This paper explores students' ability to analyse andinterpret empirical data as inadequate data analysis skills and understandings may contribute to the renowned disappointing outcomes of practical work in secondary school physics. Selected competences, derived from a collection of leading curricula, are explored through interviews and practical tasks, each consisting of three probes. The 51 students, aged 15 and commencing post-compulsory science education in the Netherlands, were able to carry out basic skills such as collecting data and representing these. In interpreting the data in terms of the investigated phenomenon or situation however, performance was weak. Students often appeared to be unable to identify the crucial features of a given graph. Conclusions based on the data were often tautological or superficial, lacking salient features. Students failed to infer implications from the data, to interpret data at a higher level of abstraction, or to specify limitations to the validity of the analysis or conclusions. The findings imply that the students' understanding of data-analysis should be developed further before they can engage successfully in more 'open' practical work. The study offers a collection of activities that may help to address the situation, suggesting a baseline for guided development of data analysis abilities.

Digital Research Skills in Secondary Science Education: A Guiding Framework and University Teachers’ Perception

“…Students lack the ability to structure a paper and lack skills in referencing, use of captions and formatting. Despite the fact that students are able to draw adequate graphs on paper (Pols et al, 2021), displaying graphs digitally remains difficult. Similar to Sadikin et al's (2021) findings, many students were found to have insufficient experience with using spreadsheets, e.g., in processing data, axis labelling, drawing of a trendline, etc.…”

“…To give just one example, one of the most important research skills for STEM students is constructing a graph out of a dataset. A recent study in science education shows that pre-university physics students are generally able to construct suitable graphs on paper, 67% of which meet all scientific conventions (Pols et al, 2021). However, when students are confronted with constructing similar graphs by digital means, the results are insufficient (Sadikin et al, 2021).…”

One setup for many experiments: enabling versatile student-led investigations

“…As students ultimately should be able to apply in an integrated way the full scope of PACKS and make research decisions themselves [4,9,10], the students engage in a final project where they conduct a self-conceived experiment [11]. Students' ability to conceive and conduct a physics experiment as well as report on it, is assessed using a grading rubric that is derived from the Assessment Rubric for Physics Inquiry (ARPI) [12].…”

Analysis of Students’ Learning Interest Toward Physics at Madrasah Aliyah

“…As an educator, the teacher tries to find out how students think about physics (Suwonjandee et al, 2018;Pols et al, 2021). There are several possibilities that make students think that physics is uninteresting.…”