Lab courses for prospective physics teachers: what could we learn from the first COVID-19 lockdown?

Scientific paper - Original scientific paper

• Author: K Jeličić
• Author: M-A Geyer
• Author: L Ivanjek
• Author: P Klein
• Author: S Küchemann
• Author: M N Dahlkemper
• Author: A Sušac
• Author's institution: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Science; (Department of Physics)
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: NATURAL SCIENCES; Physics

Abstract (english)

At the universities of Dresden, Vienna, and Zagreb, a laboratory course for prospective physics teachers was transferred to an online environment because of the lockdown in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this paper is to present and compare students’ and instructors’ considerations about the experiences with this laboratory course at these three universities and to formulate guidelines for organizing lab courses for prospective physics teachers. The research was conducted in three steps: first, interviews were conducted with prospective physics teachers (N = 10) ; second, an online questionnaire was administered to course participants (N = 99) ; and third, lab course instructors completed an online questionnaire (N = 8). The results show that an increase in creativity and confidence was expressed when conducting home experiments. Students who received support and guidance benefited more from the online lab course, but some students also experienced a greater time commitment. On a positive note, all participants thought outside- the-box during this lab experience and found solutions that led to new ways of conducting labs. Our study suggests that in future online or regular lab courses, students should have the chance to make decisions about experiments and be creative, with an emphasis on peer discussions and support from instructors.

• Keywords (english): COVID-19 lockdown; physics education; university education
• Language: english
• Publication type: Scientific paper - Original scientific paper
• Publication status: Published
• Peer review: Peer review - international
• Publication version: Published version
• Journal title: European Journal of Physics
• Numbering: vol. 43, no. 5, 055701
• p-ISSN: 0143-0807
• e-ISSN: 1361-6404
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6404/ac6ea1
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:217:704184
• Publication: 2022-06-16
• Document URL: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6404/ac6ea1
• Type of resource: Text
• Access conditions: Open access
• Public note: Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Received 3 February 2022, revised 18 April 2022. Accepted for publication 11 May 2022. Published 16 June 2022.
• Created on: 2023-09-07 18:29:24