BASIC ELECTRONICS LABORATORY TOWARDS

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conception: understand, misunderstand, no understanding and no response. Furthermore, analyzing on demographic factor such as gender also had been.
BASIC ELECTRONICS LABORATORY TOWARDS IMPROVING STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING: DOES IT AFFECTIVE?

Nurul Syafiqah Yap Abdullah School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia [email protected] and

Faridah Ibrahim School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia 11800, Penang, Malaysia [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Physics continue to be an unattractive and a difficult subject for students. Electricity had become a vital knowledge and keep on demanding from all over the world. Learning electronics had always been a difficult pursuit for most students around the world. Undergraduate colleges and universities, polytechnics and even secondary schools proposed some laboratory works in electronics with hope to improve their students’ knowledge. Hence, this work investigates the effectiveness of the existed Basic Electronics Laboratory towards enhancing students’ understandings and attitudes generally in physics. Ohm’s Law laboratory was specifically chosen for this study. Thirty five first year polytechnic students from electrical engineering courses were selected as the respondents. A set of questionnaires were distributed before and after the laboratory works. Both high and low ability respondents were analyzed according to their level of conception: understand, misunderstand, no understanding and no response. Furthermore, analyzing on demographic factor such as gender also had been conducted. The findings showed that the respo ndents gain a better knowledge after been through the laboratory works. No significant differences were found on the respondents’ gender. Hence, it can be concluded that basic laboratory does affect towards improving student’s understanding. Keywords: Basic Electronics, Ohm’s Law, Laboratory, conception, polytechnics

INTRODUCTION

The use of laboratory method in science teaching originated from the ideas of early scientists. Laboratory-based learning had been a long-standing tradition in undergraduate physics. Laboratory experiences were found to promote central

educations goals including the enhancement of students’ understanding of concepts and its applications (Hofstein & Rachel, 2007). According to I. O. Abimbola (1994), there were three rationales for laboratory work in science generally; 1: The subject matter of science is highly complex and abstract, 2: Students need to participate in enquiry to appreciate the spirit and methods of science, and 3: Practical work is intrinsically interesting to students. (Abimbola, 1994). Over the last two decades, a great deal of educational research has been directed towards the exploration of students’ ideas and difficulties on physical concepts and process (Duit, Goldberg & Nidderer, 1991). Understanding its fundamental theories is a must to ensure deeper conceptual understandings and create self confidence during practical sessions. Electricity is found to be a particular problem, as it involves extremely complex and highly abstract concepts.

Nowadays, the events in science curriculum consist of many concrete concepts. Students were found frequently misinterpret some results of incorrectly remember what had been taught (Rachel & Marina, 2009). In some cases, students try to understand the science concepts by using mathematical equations. In the last two decades, a number of researches found that one content area that has been very commonly investigated, and across a wide range of ages and previous physics learning experiences, is electricity. Research consistently s hows very poor student understanding after the teaching of electricity (Pamela, Brian & Richard, 2001). Explanations on concepts such as current, resistance and voltage were mostly been expressed wrongly (Caillot & Nguyen-Xuan, 1995). A number of researches had been done to study students’ understanding of basic electric circuit. The studies were focused on simple electricity circuits, flowing current in the electric circuits and especially the brightness of bulbs in simple circuits (Osborne & Freyberg, 1985; Borges & Gilbert, 1999).

According to Russell and Weaver (2008), some students depend heavily on laboratory for reinforcement of the concepts that been taught in the class, while some student found laboratory was more tedious than helpful (Russell & Weaver, 2008). The students’ perspectives and learning outcome from the laboratory are an as yet extremely under-explored area in educational research. Hence, the aim of this research is to investigate whether the existed laboratory works does affect and improve polytechnics students’ understanding in Basic Electronics.

METHODOLODY

The study has been taken place for students in Seberang Perai Polytechnics, Malaysia. Thirty five of first year electrical engineering students were invited to participate in this study. Students were categorized into high ability and low ability, according to their SPM

results. Both high ability and low ability students are analyzed. Table 1 show the profile of the students who participated in this study. Table 1. Profile of the students who participated in this study.

Description Number of Students Ratio of boys to girls Percentage of High Ability Students

Profile 35 28 : 7 30 %

The topic of Basic Circuits is given in the first year compulsory basic education for electrical engineering students in polytechnics. Ohms Law was specifically chosen for this study. Two sets of questionnaires were distributed. One set before and the other set was distributed after the laboratory section in the class. The questionnaire consists of 3 questions. Both of the set contains the similar questions , in order to determine the differences in student’s knowledge before and after learning.

In this study, open-ended questions were used (Osborne & Freyberg, 1985) in order to investigate the true knowledge that been playing around in students mind. The questions such as: Sketch a simple electric circuits consists of series and parallel arrangements; given a circuit only with a resistor, explain why there’s no current flow in the circuit; what can you say for a bulb in a low resistance circuit compare to a high resistance one on their brightness? Why? These questions were prepared by referring to the Bloom Taxonomy Model, in order to run an effective survey.

The students under investigation were asked to answer the questionnaires before and after the laboratory work in the class. They answered the questionaires based on the knowledge that being taught by their lecturers. Hence, the effectiveness of learning and the understanding of the students can be determined through their answer in the questionnaires. From the open-ended questions and the drawings from students, it provide much and extensive information about misunderstanding (White & Gunstone, 1992). Besides, these open-ended questions could provide both quantitative and qualitative data. When the data had been collected and evaluated, it was classified into a few groups, which consists of truely understand, misunderstanding, no understanding and no response. The data was analyzed and categorized according to students’ understanding level. Details will be discussed in the following section.

RESULTS AND FINDINGS

In this study, data were obtained from the questionnaires that been distributed to 35 first year electrical engineering students in Seberang Perai Polytechnics. Data were collected before and after the laboratory session of Basic Circuits topic, and had been analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The students’ level of understanding in basic electronics circuits were summarized and presented in Table 2. Understanding levels of the students were determined with percentages.

Table 2. Understanding Level of High Ability and Low Ability Students on Basic Electronics Circuits.

Students’s Group

N = 35 High Ability Before Lesson (%)

Low Ability

After Lesson (%)

Before Lesson After Lesson (%) (%)

Truely Understand

13

33

2

15

Misunderstanding

23

13

25

24

No Understanding

6

2

8

5

No Response

8

2

15

6

As seen from Table 2, students from high ability group show a drastic increment of percentage in their understanding on Basic Electronics Circuits after being through the laboratory session. On the other hand, it almost remains the same for low ability students’ misunderstanding level. This was due to the lack of scientific equipments in the laboratory and the uninteresting must-attend laboratory session. On the other hand, most of the low ability students were came from the non-science background, hence it’s hard for them to grasp the new theory and knowledge which was seems strange to them.

. From the questionaires that been collected, students in group high ability were found to be able answer almost all the questions. However, only a few get to answer it correctly. The explainations of the answer that been gaved by all the high ability and low ability students were not exactly answer the question. They do not understand the true meaning which the questions needed. Hence they unable to state the correct answer. Almost half of them having misunderstanding conception on their answer. Some of the misconception that occured during this study was they misunderstand the real concept and function of a voltmeter. Most of low ability students and even some of high ability students had in their minds that voltmeter was used to generate voltage and as a power source, but did not mention about measuring voltage.

In another case of study, students were given two circuits with the same power source, a bulb and a resistor, which resistor in circuit 1 is greater than the value of resistor from circuit 2. Most of the students can successfully determine which bulb if brighter, but only a few can explain why. Most of them just ignore and leave the reason blank. Among the explanations that been gathered from all the questionnaires, it was found that almost half of the total high and low ability students were able to explain the reason of a brighter bulb after they have been through the learning process.

CONCLUSIONS

Generally, the study was carried out to determine student’s misconception about basic electric circuits. To conclude, it found that the misconception of students showed some improvements after been through the class lesson. However, there still occurred misunderstanding and even no understanding among some students after lesson. This was due to the existed traditional teaching method which was bored and unenjoyable to students. They just take it as a ‘must-attend’ credit for them to passing the subject.

REFERENCES

Avi H. and Rachel M. N. (2007), The laboratory in science education: the state of the art, Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 2007, 8 (2), 105-107.

Borges A. T. and Gilbert J. K. (1999), Mental models of electricity. 21(1), 95-117.

Caillot M. and Nguyen-Xuan A. (1995), Adults’ understanding of electricity, Public Understanding of Science, 4, 131-151.

Duit R., Goldberg F. and Nidderer H. (1991), Research in physics learning: Theoretical issues and empirical studies. Kiel: IPN-University of Kiel.

I. O. Abimbola (1994), A critical appraisal of the role of laboratory practical work in science teaching in Nigeria, Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, 4 (1&2), 59-65.

Osborne R. and Freyberg P. (1985), Learning in science. Hong Kong: Heineman Education.

Pamela M., Brian McK. and Richard G. (2001), A perspective on the resolution of confusions in the teaching of electricity, Research in Science Education, 31, 575-587.

Rachel F. M. and Marina M. (2009), The effect of interactive lecture experiments on students academic achievement and attitudes towards physics, Canadian Journal of Physics, 87, 917-924.

C. B. Russell & G. C. Weaver (2008), Student Perceptions of the Purpose and Function of the Laboratory in Science: A Grounded Theory Study, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1-14.

White R. and Gunstone R. (1992), Probing understanding, London: Falmer Press.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to thank Universiti Sains Malaysia for the financial support through USM Fellowship and continuous support from Seberang Prai polytechnic, Penang.