Improve students' awareness of linking the experiment with their real lives

Abstract

We surveyed 218 science students' from a Thai University for their views about what should be done to improve the introductory physics laboratory course. One of their responses strongly recommended that the real life application contents to the experiment should be indicated in the physics laboratory direction. The inclusions should give them a clear reason how the thing they learn from the experiment can probably be used in their lives. From our survey, about 83% of students agreed that the laboratory instruction should include an example of real life situation. Therefore, our initial goal was to find an appropriate way to improve students' awareness of linking what they learn from the experiment with their real life experiences. In the first semester of 2008, the first trial of modified physics laboratory direction was carried out with 18 second year physics students. The additional contents of physics applications were introduced as the prolog of the physics laboratory direction. Four out of twelve experiment directions were prepared to include this additional introduction. From our interview as a mean to evaluate the proposal, only 11% of students could explain but their answers disagreed with the examples of real life situations given within the experiment direction. This result made us realized that this was not only the matter of having or not having the application messages but also the matter of putting the massages in the right place. In the second semester of 2008, the second trial was carried out. This time, the application contents were blended into the theoretical part which was found from our separate survey to be one of the most interesting parts for students. Again, four out of twelve experiment directions were prepared in this proposed style. The students' responses showed that about 40% of students could clearly describe the application message relevant to experiments given in the direction. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.