Value added or misattributed? A multi-institution study on the educational benefit of labs for reinforcing physics content
Value added or misattributed? A multi-institution study on the educational benefit of labs for reinforcing physics content
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增值还是错误分配？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
C. Wieman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
N. Holmes;J. Olsen;James Thomas;C. Wieman
教学实验室被广泛视为教授科学内容的一种独特的、尽管昂贵的方式。我们通过三个非常不同的机构的九门不同的实验室课程，衡量了入门实验室课程在实现这一教育目标方面的有效性。这些机构和课程涵盖了广泛的学生群体和教学风格。所研究的九门课程有两个关键的共同点：实验的目的是加强课堂内容，而实验是可选的。通过比较参加和没有参加实验的学生的表现(对选择效果进行了仔细的归一化)，我们发现，按照课程考试表现衡量，参加实验对学习没有普遍且准确的附加价值。鉴于实验室课程资源密集的性质，这项工作应激励各机构和部门重新审查其实验室课程的目标和实施情况。我们展示了为什么这些结果是有意义的，当我们观察参与研究和教学实验室的学生的比较心理过程时，并提供了使实验室课程更具教育价值的替代目标和教学方法。
Instructional labs are widely seen as a unique, albeit expensive, way to teach scientific content. We measured the effectiveness of introductory lab courses at achieving this educational goal across nine different lab courses at three very different institutions. These institutions and courses encompassed a broad range of student populations and instructional styles. The nine courses studied had two key things in common: the labs aimed to reinforce the content presented in lectures, and the labs were optional. By comparing the performance of students who did and did not take the labs (with careful normalization for selection effects), we found universally and precisely no added value to learning from taking the labs as measured by course exam performance. This work should motivate institutions and departments to reexamine the goals and conduct of their lab courses, given their resource-intensive nature. We show why these results make sense when looking at the comparative mental processes of students involved in research and instructional labs, and offer alternative goals and instructional approaches that would make lab courses more educationally valuable.