Physics practical work : students’ experiences and views

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate students’ experiences in practical work in Physics, with particular emphasis being made on inquiry-based practical sessions and on designing typical practical sessions. Furthermore, it sought to discover students’ opinions and views regarding inquiry in Physics practical work, and their feelings, approaches and attitudes during Physics practical sessions. Structured focus group discussions were carried out with 10 different Physics classes from State and Church, girls’ and boys’ secondary schools in Malta. In this way, the sample was a fair representation of the population and there was a balance between the two genders. The results of this study show that inquiry-based Physics practical sessions were not a common practice amongst the participating classes. The majority of those who performed investigations enjoyed and felt confident doing them. Students were also given little opportunity to design parts of a typical Physics experiment themselves. The students who never planned the method of an experiment had contrasting positive and negative opinions about this practice, but the slight majority did not want to be given the opportunity to do so. In relation to Physics experiments, a number of classes did contextualization, but only a few students tried to link the experiment with everyday life on their own. Curiosity was not found to be a strong element in the current Physics practical sessions, while the great majority of the students experienced some stress in some part or other of a Physics practical. These findings suggest that Physics experiments should promote more students’ thinking and contextualization, be relevant and interesting for students, and be stress-free as much as possible.