Can a Hands-On Physics Project Lab be Delivered Effectively as a Distance Lab?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this article, we examine whether an inquiry-based, hands-on physics lab can be delivered effectively as a distance lab. In science and engineering, hands-on distance labs are rare and open-ended project labs in physics have not been reported in the literature. Our introductory physics lab at a large Canadian research university features hands-on experiments that can be performed at home with common materials and online support, as well as a capstone project that serves as the main assessment of the lab. After transitioning the lab from face-to-face instruction to a distance format, we compared the capstone project scores of the two lab formats by conducting an analysis of variance, which showed no significant differences in the overall scores. However, our study revealed two areas that need improvements in instruction, namely data analysis and formulating a clear goal or research question. Focus group interviews showed that students in the distance lab did not perceive the capstone project as authentic science and that they would have preferred a campus lab format. Overall our results suggest that the distance project lab discussed here might be an acceptable substitute for a campus lab and might also be suitable for other distance courses in science.
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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 | 0.013 | 0.057 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.018 | 0.007 |
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".