Exploring how students experience context-based learning in physics

Abstract

The aim of the study is to investigate from a students' perspective the phenomenon of context-based learning within a local context in the learning of Physics. This is done to identify whether a contextual approach: (i) increases students' attitudes towards the subject (ii) brings students to prefer learning Physics within a context (iii) improves students understanding and hence perform better in context-related questions and (iv) makes students perceive context-based test questions to be easier or more difficult than traditional test questions. This study was carried out with a group of Form 3 students whom I teach attending a Boys' Junior Lyceum. The topics covered are 'Moments' (traditional approach) and 'Pressure' (context-based approach). Data was collected through various methods and a mixed methodology approach was put into practice. Quantitative data was used to back up data collected through qualitative methods. This was done to get a clearer picture of the current situation. Methods used included: traditional and context-based lessons, teacher observations, students' writings, interviews, class tests, attitude test and a survey. Results show that students feel that Physics is relevant for them but this was not a result of a contextualised approach as similar scores (2.37 and 2.42) were obtained before and after context - based lessons. Similarly even though students' participation and motivation seems to be enhanced when presenting relevant situations within a context there was still no statistical evidence (P = 0.573) that this approach improves students' attitudes towards the subject. On these same lines, corresponding results were obtained when analysing students' understanding. This is because even though students claimed to prefer answering context-related questions and on average they performed better in a related test it still cannot be concluded that a contextual approach enhances understanding.