Physiology of Exercise Laboratory Enhanced by Computer-Assisted Instruction and Inquiry-Based Investigation

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Traditional teaching strategies in the undergraduate physiology of exercise laboratory course utilize numerous demonstrations of the metabolic measurement system or involve laboratory problems that simply involve determining descriptive physiological measures. These teaching strategies often fail to develop students' higher cognitive skills or their understanding and appreciation of the scientific process. This project is adapting an inquiry-based computer-assisted strategy used at the University of Oregon and integrating computer-assisted instruction into the laboratory course and develop inquiry-based laboratory investigations. Eight computer workstations will be acquired, ensuring no more than two students to a workstation, and networked with a metabolic measurement system. Also, two data acquisition systems will be interfaced to each workstation which allow measurement of a variety of physiological variables. All data files from the metabolic measurement system and data acquisition systems will be stored on the server. Students will be able to access a large database of previously collected data from any workstation, or have the opportunity to manipulate experimental variables using a data acquisition system providing "hands-on" experiences. Inquiry-based laboratory experiments will be developed which supply fewer instructions and place more responsibility on students to design and organize their own experiments. This teaching strategy emphasizes the scientific inquiry process, such as hypothesizing, designing and conducting the experiment, organizing and analyzing data, and drawing and defending conclusions from the data. The primary expected outcomes of this project are greater infusion of technology in the laboratory course and an enhancement of higher cognitive and scientific process skills. Effectiveness of this teaching strategy will be evaluated and the results presented at professional meetings and published in national science education journals.