Изследователски практикум
Research-Like Student Lab

Summary/Abstract: The work presents an approach in which an experimental assignment is carried out similarly to a scientific study in the frames of a student lab course. The approach aims to meet the students with the basic stages in experimental studies and to instill in them the excitement of shared “discoveries”. It was first tested in the frames of a General physics lab course with 76 freshman students majoring in Molecular biology. In contrast to classical labs, the proposed approach involved: application of the scientific method, selecting an applicable experimental method, out-of-class teamwork, drawing conclusions from the obtained results and presenting the results in public. The selected assignments can be completed with common materials, simple equipment and smartphone applications. The current work summarizes the observation of the involved faculty and the results from a survey among the students. The stages that the students had most difficulty with were identified as the following: setting up a hypothesis, modeling the physical processes, processing the results and drawing conclusions from them, and cooperating with team members. It was concluded that the proposed educational approach can be inspiring and useful for the development of the students’ critical thinking and creativity. Furthermore, it is widely applicable to students at different levels of competence.

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