1.

INTRODUCTION

Inquiry-Based (IB) instruction is a form of active learning [1, 2], situated within the context of investigating authentic problems [3-5]. Guidance, or scaffolding, is provided by the teacher and is used strategically as part of the lesson design [6]. Grounded in socio-cognitive theories of learning, IB leans heavily on collaborative activities that engage students in discipline-specific practices that promote the use of high-level cognitive skills – analysis, decision-making, and evaluation. We have reported on IB instruction and the use of scaffolds for a college Waves and Modern Physics course [7], and now extend this approach to lab experimentation, i.e., Inquiry-Based Labs (IBL).

Compared to traditional labs, IBL requires students to make decisions that are critical to the process – what methods to use, what data to collect, etc. [8, 9]. Furthermore, shifting away from traditional labs is desirable; a study by Holmes and al. [10] showed that, “… we found universally and precisely no added value to learning course content 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.” IBL at the post-secondary levels could help address the issue stated by Holmes et al., however, successful implementations within the context of curriculum demands can be a challenge.

We report on a case study conducted in Fall 2021, featuring a design focus IBL implementation that has met the challenge successfully. The case study spanned the 15-week semester with students’ scientific reasoning assessed at three points: pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test. Two specialized instruments were used: (1) George’s Ice Cream (GIC) tests [11, 12], adapted by our research team; and (2) the Topic Specific Epistemic Beliefs (TSEB) questionnaire [13], designed and validated by other studies. Students showed improvements in their scientific reasoning about experimental design decisions. In addition, results of the TSEB questionnaire show students also increased their awareness of how scientific knowledge is generated, i.e., thinking more like scientists.

Section 2 shows how the IBLs were mapped during the semester. It provides an overview of the activities that students engaged with during the semester and includes examples of some of the provided scaffolds and hand-outs. A comparison between the GIC pre-test and delayed post-test, as well as the TSEB questionnaire, both done during weeks 1 and 15 is provided in section 3. A discussion is provided in section 4.

2.

MAPPING THE INQUIRY-BASED LABS OVER A SEMESTER OF A WAVES AND MODERN PHYSICS COURSE

The IBL case study was set in a Québec (Canada) college level Waves and Modern Physics course taken by all students pursuing studies in the Natural Sciences (including Health Science and Pure & Applied Science) [7, 14]. This course follows one on Mechanics and is equivalent to a freshman year physics course elsewhere in North America. It was a fully synchronous in-person semester with 5 hours of class time per week - 3 hours for lecturing and active learning activities, and 2 hours of lab time. There were 36 students registered in the class with two lab sections of 18 students each. Students in each lab section are then put into teams of 3-4 students which were kept constant for the entire semester.

Our model for IBL is based on that presented by Blanchard et al. [8] and is shown in Figure 1. We modified this model slightly and have identified four lab inquiry competencies: a) asking a research question (RQ), b) designing a methods (or procedure), c) collecting and analyzing data, and interpreting results, d) writing a lab report. As such, we developed 4 IBL modules based on the harmonic motion and mechanical waves sections of the course. Each module includes competencies b and c. Competency d is included in modules two and four. Only the last module includes competency a. This is summarized in Figure 2.

Figure 1:

IBL model based on that presented by Blanchard et al. [8].

Figure 2:

Mapping IBLs over a semester of a Waves and Modern Physics course.

Each module has a series of scaffolds to help students become more competent for the four lab inquiry competencies. Some scaffolds are labelled “student activities” where students are actively designing methods, performing experiments, etc. Other scaffolds are labelled “teacher activities” where the teacher provides reflective questions to the students, initiates a class discussion, provides feedback, etc.

Each activity leads to students completing a task(s) and submitting work to the teacher, these are labelled “student artifacts.” These artifacts can be submitted individually, in pairs or in full teams. They are used for formative and summative assessments by the teacher, and analyzed by our research team.

The “assessments” row in Figure 2 refer to the two specialized instruments used, i.e., GIC and TSEB, and other student tasks such as learning reflections and self/peer assessments on the quality of their work.

Modules 1 to 3 have dedicated lab time incorporated into our lab schedule. The IBL student activities replace the previous traditional labs that were part of our past lab schedule. Most of module 4 is done out-of-class. This allows for some non-IBL experiments covering geometric optics, wave optics and modern physics to remain in our lab schedule.

2.1.

Module 1 – Simple Harmonic Motion (block-spring system)

The first task for students begins on week 2 of the semester, after some class time spent on simple harmonic motion. They are to design two methods for two research questions provided by the teacher. During the lab period, the students have access to all equipment needed to perform block-spring based simple harmonic motion experiments. They are encouraged to use the equipment and “mess-about” with it, such that they discover with the equipment can do and test their methods before submitting it by the end of the lab period.

The following week, the students perform the experiments they proposed. The collect and analyze data, and interpret the results. The students need to present their data in tables and graphs, but they are free to choose how many data points, trials, etc. they wish to collect. By the end of the second lab period, the students are to submit the data, analysis and answer the two research questions. The scaffolds provided by the teacher for both weeks 2 and 3 are presented in Figure 3.

Figure 3:

Module 1 scaffolds provided by the teacher for (a) week 2 and (b) week 3.

Next is an individual student reflective assignment done as homework using myDALITE [15]. The teacher provides an “expert” data collection and analysis for the block-spring based simple harmonic motion experiments. The students first need to describe the methods that led to this expert data collection. They then reflect (compare/contrast) between these new methods and the ones they used for the experiment. Next, following this reflection, the students are given two simple pendulum based simple harmonic motion research questions (similar to the block-spring based ones) and must prepare methods for each. Figure 4 shows examples of what the teacher provides to students and of a reflective question.

Figure 4.

(a) Example of an “expert” data collection and analysis for the block-spring based simple harmonic motion experiments. (b) Example of a reflective question.

2.4.

Module 4 – Building a Musical Instrument Project

The second half of the semester is dedicated to module 4. The project description is presented in class during week 6 (see Figure 5) and there is one dedicated lab period after module 3 where students can brainstorm as a team, explore lab equipment available to them, run some experiments and have a team feedback session with the teacher. During the feedback session, the teacher goes over the module 2 team lab report, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses. The teacher then addresses the reflective activity and questionnaire that concluded module 3. Last, each student is share ideas about their research question(s) that they wish to explore for module 4. Even though the students have seen examples of research questions for modules 1-3 (these act as scaffolds for module 4), this is their first attempt of proposing their own research question. Some students have difficulties formulating their ideas into an appropriate research question and the teacher’s role here is to guide them (for example, many students have research questions that link the fundamental frequency of a string to its length, tension or string type). The overall goal of the feedback session is to have each student be confident that he/she can complete all tasks that relate to the project and the four lab inquiry competencies.

Figure 5.

Musical Instrument Project (a) description and (b) summary of deliverables.

As mentioned before, much of the work that follows is done individually at home. The students do have access to the college lab equipment if they request it and the teacher is available to answer questions and address concerns. The deliverables of the project are listed in Figure 5 (b). The students need to build a string- or pipe-based instrument, and then present it and play it for the class. Accompanying the instrument is a “specification sheet” that includes questions about their design, their process of creation, the frequencies the instrument can play (including some calculations based on course content). In parallel, the students perform an experiment at home based on strings or pipes. The students propose their own research question, design the methods, collect and analyze data, interpret results and write a lab report. The last item to complete is a peer- and self-assessment of their and their team’s work, including a learning reflection and questionnaire about IBL and the project.

3.

MEASURING STUDENT SCIENTIFIC REASONING AND EPISTEMIC BELIEFS

The GIC tests were used to measure student scientific reasoning about experimental design decisions. The pre-test was conducted during the first day of class and the delayed post-test was conducted during the last week of class (see Figure 6). The comparison between the two is as follows:

Figure 6.

GIC tests measuring student scientific reasoning. (a) Pre-test, (b) and (c) delayed post-test.

PRE-TEST:

DELAYED POST-TEST:

To summarize, there is a modest improvement in their explanation of the problem with George’s experiment, but there appears to be more confidence in making their claim.

The same TSEB questionnaire was also conducted during the first day of class and the last week of class. The questionnaire is supposed to measure four different dimensions of epistemological beliefs about the topic of climate: certainty of knowledge about climate, simplicity of knowledge about climate, source of knowledge about climate, and justification for knowing about climate. Of the 49 questions, 6 showed an improvement when comparing the average class score between weeks 1 and 15, as shown in Figure 7. The other questions showed no statistical difference.

Figure 7.

TSEB questionnaire, 6 questions showing an improvement when comparing the average class score between weeks 1 and 15.

4.

DISCUSSION

Implementing IBL in a semester long college physics course is feasible. However, it does take careful planning and scaffolding such that the goals are attainable for students without introducing too much frustration (i.e., zone of proximal development [16]). This applies to the micro level (e.g., implementing module 1 by itself as one IBL for the semester) and to the macro level (e.g., module by module, leading to a final project). During the final week of class, students answered a questionnaire about IBL and the project. When asked, “Were the tools / equipment / online platforms / resources [i.e., scaffolds] provided as part of the labs difficult to use?,” 65% of students who completed the questionnaire said that they were easy to use. 31% said that they were sometimes difficult to use and only 4% said that they were very difficult to use.

Subjectively, the teacher of the class did feel that students were more engaged during IBLs. This was true when comparing the fall 2021 cohort when the did IBLs and non-IBLs (i.e., traditional labs), and is also true when comparing to past cohorts that did only non-IBLs. This observation may be supported by data taken from the student questionnaire. When asked, “Is this a way you would like to do labs in the future?,” 28% of the students replied, “Maybe for a few labs.” 31% replied, “Yes, absolutely for all labs in this discipline.” 35% replied, “Yes, absolutely for all labs for all science disciplines,” and 6% replied, “other.” No one replied, “no.”

Regarding grades, there was no statistical difference when comparing the overall lab grade between this IBL cohort and previous non-IBL cohorts. However, the student perception about learning physics via IBLs was positive. When asked, “Did engaging in this series of labs and tasks [IBL] help you learn Physics?,” on a 5-point likert scale, with 1 being “no, not at all,” and 5 being “yes, a lot,” 41% of the students chose 4 and 59% chose 5.

With respect to measuring student scientific reasoning about experimental design decisions and their epistemic beliefs, it is encouraging to see that there was an improvement in both. Our next steps are, 1) to analyze all the student artifacts, including the delayed post-test to observe individual student trajectories throughout the semester, and 2) to carefully measure the impact of the IBL implementation by comparing future IBL cohorts to control groups that continue with non-IBLs.

5.

CONCLUSIONS

We have reported on case study featuring a design focus IBL implementation in a college Waves and Modern Physics course. Four modules span the 15-week semester and engage students in a series of scaffolded activities helping them to develop four lab inquiry competencies: a) asking a RQ, b) designing a methods, c) collecting and analyzing data, and interpreting results, and d) writing a lab report. Based on two specialized instruments, GIC tests and the TSEB questionnaire, the students showed improvements in their scientific reasoning about experimental design decisions and increased their awareness of how scientific knowledge is generated.