An Analysis of the Students’ Perceptions of Physics in Science Foundation Studies at the National University of Laos
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper presents the situation of physics teaching and learning at the Science Foundation Studies program at National University of Laos. The study has focused on the students’ understanding of concepts in mechanics, and the situation of the laboratory work activities. The research tools used in this study were the Force Concept Inventory test, interviews and questionnaires. The results show that in an international comparison the Lao students reveal a low level of conceptual understanding in mechanics. They also show no improvement in their conceptual understanding after teaching. The students have little experience of laboratory work. They had expectations that laboratory work would be an interesting part of Physics Foundation Studies Course. However, few of the students do get involved in the actual measurements and handling of equipment during the practical activities. So, many of them do not feel that they learn much physics through laboratory work. This corresponds to their teachers’ understandings as well. Some strategies for improving the above mentioned aspects of physics teaching based on physics education research will be suggested. Cet article présentera la situation des processus d’enseignement et d’apprentissage de la physique au sein des classes préparatoires scientifiques de l’Université Nationale du Laos. Le but de ces classes est que les étudiants comprennent les concepts de mécanique et la situation des activités de laboratoire. Afin de mener cette étude, nous avons utilisé le test Force Concept Inventory (Inventaire des Concepts de Force), mené des interviews et appliqué des questionnaires. Au niveau international, les résultats montrent que les étudiants laotiens ont un niveau bas de compréhension des concepts de mécanique. Ils montrent également que ces mêmes étudiants n’améliorent pas leur compréhension après avoir participé au cours. Les étudiants possèdent peu d’expérience en laboratoire. Ils s’attendaient à ce que le travail de laboratoire soit une partie intéressante des classes préparatoires. Cependant, peu d’étudiants s’impliquent vraiment dans les mesures et dans la manipulation de l’équipement pendant les sessions de pratique. La plupart d’entre eux pensent donc ne pas apprendre grand-chose en physique pendant les pratiques de laboratoire. Cette sensation est également partagée par les professeurs. Notre objectif est donc de proposer quelques stratégies d’enseignement, soutenues par les recherches effectuées dans le domaine de l’enseignement de la physique.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".