John A. Davies
School of Physics,
Queensland University of Technology,
Brisbane
Physics courseware delivered by computer rather than by a formal lecture course was trialled during 1995 at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. The results of the trial are described and it was concluded that none of the students were disadvantaged by using the computer based courseware.
The SToMP consortium (Software Teaching of Modular Physics) have produced units of introductory physics at the secondary/tertiary level using screen based text scripts hyperlinked to multimedia objects. The objects can be video or audio clips or interactive programmed activities designed specifically to illustrate or explain the screen based text
The technique is modern in that it makes use of the multimedia capabilities of the present day computers. It is a PC based program that provides a comprehensive range of educational tools in the one package. To name a few there is a periodic table, a unit converter, a graphing and a spreadsheet unit.
The screen based text usually opens on the left side of the screen with the hypermedia links shown in blue text which when double clicked on appear in a window to the right of the text. This allows the student to study the text while interacting with the linked activities.
SToMP sets out to provide a complete lecture resource on a computer. Implementation of such a novel scheme needs to be evaluated. Human interaction as in a student/lecturer relationship is intended to be at a minimum when using such courseware. Student questionnaire responses indicate their preference for human interaction that can provide answers to problems that the computer cannot provide at this time.
The U.K. TLTP project provided funds for the staff of 9 British universities to form a consortium to write two physics modules, Measurement and Uncertainty and Waves and Vibrations. Since that time several other universities have joined in the project to write other physics modules.
QUT in Brisbane, Wollongong University, Monash University and a Swedish university are all currently engaged in producing more SToMP units in various modules such as Optics, Mechanics and Thermodynamics.
A QUT funded Teaching and Learning grant enabled students to participate in a formal evaluation of the SToMP Courseware in April/May 1995 and also assist the funding of the writing of two optics units by providing salary for a research assistant and transport of SToMP staff from the U.K. to train the Brisbane staff. The British Council also assisted by providing an air fare for one of the U.K. staff to attend at Brisbane and other centres in Australia.
A first semester subject PHB122 which had a student enrolment of about 180 students was selected as the trial group. From this group, due to the limited numbers of fast networked computers that would be available, 50 students were selected based on the fact that they had all enrolled for two semesters of physics.
The SToMP courseware material covered one third of the first semester subject content and ran for the final five weeks of the first semester. By the end of the five week period the SToMP group had shrunk to about 35 students, the remainder electing to return to the lecture course.
50 precourse and thirty post course questionnaires were completed.
These were reviewed, together with the recorded comments derived from filmed sections of the students using the coursework, by staff from our Education Faculty.
One of the objectives of the funding of the project was to provide fast network switches to enable the multiple viewing of multimedia files across a network. The switches were not installed until after the students had completed the course.
It was known to the project director from his experiences with SToMP installations in the U.K. that this was a most important factor in the obtaining of a good student acceptance of the new teaching method.
Any delay in providing screen images for a student once a key has been pressed or an action has been initiated produces a negative response in student perceptions of the courseware.
The Computer Based Education (CBE) staff arranged for a group of 25 computers to be wired for fast simultaneous access in the units classroom (or laboratory). The 50 students were broken up into 2 equal groups and provided with schedules and outlines of what was required of them in participating in the research.
The first period involved hands on instruction of the use of Windows and SToMP in particular. It was at this time that the students observed at first hand the effects of multimedia courseware being loaded simultaneously to 25 machines.
Screen load times of 15 minutes were common in the first week. Videos were also found not to play. The staff were able even without the fast switches to lower the load time down to about 30 seconds which was accepted by the continuing SToMP students
The classroom was booked for two hour sessions for the exclusive use of the SToMP students. Additional two hour blocks were also reserved for their use (at times when they did not have other commitments) and they were able to reserve time on the computers to suit their own schedules.
As director of the project I attended the first scheduled hour for each group and then continued assistance to the Education Faculty staff who interviewed the students after filming. The first weeks were busy explaining how to use Windows on a computer and specifically how SToMP functioned.
Students with prior knowledge of the Windows operating system had little trouble understanding the workings of SToMP
The Audio Visual (AV) staff found it very difficult to set up filming of the students use of the keyboard and the SToMP screen simultaneously. A few groups were filmed and interviewed even though the technical merits of the process were not entirely satisfactory.
The students found it very useful to print out any screen material they thought appropriate. They considered it a very difficult process to copy down accurate notes from a lecturer in a lecture. Often the lecturer went too fast for them to get the notes down. SToMP offered a better alternative in this regard.
After the first two weeks there had been a noticeable drop off in the numbers of students attending the SToMP classes. From weeks 3 to 5 only one further drop out was noted.
The students who dropped out were interviewed to ascertain there reasons this will be discussed later.
It was also found that even though the students had been requested not to attend the lectures they found that with the increased flexibility of access to the SToMP courseware in the CBE laboratory they could arrange to attend both courses. (Lecture and computer based). Only a small number of the finishing SToMP student group carried through on this action.
Students studying the lecture course were not given a password to access the SToMP material on the CBE computers
Some SToMP students printed out much more computer based courseware than was necessary in the hope that they covered all they might need for an examination.
SToMP have since produced printed manuals of all the text based material in the course from which unlimited copying is allowed by the students of appropriate sections.
Being able to work at their own pace and in their own time schedule was felt to be a most important advantage.
A foreign student pointed out the difficulties she had with the Australian language so that in using SToMP she could go back over material time and again until she understood the meaning.
Students found the additional material provided by SToMP such as the biographies of scientists, glossary of terms, data available from the periodic table, the units converter etc. quite beneficial when they could obtain or use the additional information without moving away from the keyboard.
Since the printed material was in effect a screen copy there was no chance of them making a mistake in copying the notes down
The CBE classroom was heavily booked by students from other faculties so time away from the scheduled allocation was sometimes difficult to arrange.
Out of the 100 or so computers available only the 25 computers in the CBE laboratory were set up to run SToMP reasonably quickly.
Since that time the fast network switches have been installed and this disadvantage is far less important.
Students who had little computer experience felt that there was an additional workload in learning to use the computer
Students commented on the initial slowness of the network being a deterrent to using the courseware effectively.
Others felt less confident about using SToMP to study for the examination because the examination would be set by the lecturer taking the lecture course and not by the computer or the project director
There appears to be no prescriptive method that students follow in their learning process but it is commonly accepted that students either learn in a serial manner or in a random manner.
SToMP allows for both processes by providing a guided lecture script which a student can follow in a serial manner and for others using the inbuilt search function they can randomly select topics of interest in their learning procedure.
It has been a common feature amongst all the student responses to the post questionnaire that they prefer to have a tutor in attendance to offer assistance with understanding the physics and explaining technical aspects of the program operation.
It appears as though the computer is not intelligent enough to answer their questions
All finishing SToMP students felt that the course was appropriate and all other additional information was useful.
Nine students who left the SToMP course were interviewed before the end of semester.
Four felt their lack of computing skills and proficiency in using Windows was a major handicap to them learning from SToMP
One felt that he was learning two courses a course on physics and a course on Windows he felt he only had the capacity to learn one course at the time.
All the students referred to the slowness of the network and the lack of video and sound clips being a major cause for concern that they would not get enough out of the course material to help them pass the examination.
They had more faith in the lecturer providing them with all the necessary course material
One student thought that the SToMP explanations were inadequate in comparison to those provided by the lecturer who would be setting the examination.
The results of the first year end of semester physics examination were broken up into two groups those that had been allocated to the SToMP course and had continued until the end of the five week period and those that had either left the SToMP course or had done the lecture course only.
Just looking at the mean marks it appears that the SToMP group in comparison did better in their section (Q7 - Q9) than the non-SToMP group.
A number of hypotheses were tested using the two t sample method on the
two sets of samples where the means of the SToMP (x) and non-SToMP (y) groups
are x¯ and y¯ with the variances Sx2 and Sy2 and with the number
of samples nx and ny.
and the number of degrees of simplifies freedom is given by
The first hypothesis indicates that the SToMP students did perform better on the (Q7 - Q9) set of questions in comparison to the (Q1 - Q6) set of questions
The second hypothesis shows that the non-SToMP group also did slightly better on a similar comparison but the statistical method is unable to confirm the hypothesis to the same level of certainty as for the SToMP group.
The students needed to be separated into similar cohorts of students before this analysis could be made. This was due to the fact that in the total class of some 180 students, 130 of whom did not do the SToMP course, some 80 or so either belonged to a very high OP rating group or a very low OP rating group.
This would have had the effect of skewing the results as none of these two groups were included in the SToMP group because they would only complete one semester of Physics.
A covariate analysis by the staff of the Faculty of Education, which attempts to eliminate such factors over the whole group, was unable to show any statistical significance in the different results
The Education Faculty staff considered the difference between the results of the two sampling techniques was due in part to the small sample.
They also felt that rather than trying to make definitive statements on which teaching method was the best it would be better to concentrate on which of the two different learning methods produced better outcomes.
The examination was written not to test how a student's learning process might have been improved using SToMP but rather as a test of knowledge gained from studying a prescribed set of lecture notes and problems.
The overall response from the students in regard to using the SToMP courseware was favourable even given the initial difficulties of having the courseware run smoothly over a Novell network.
There is a need to continue research into the SToMP delivery technique and find out what specific learning processes are occurring.
With further refinement and improvement the SToMP courseware appears to be able to provide a viable alternative to the current lecture approach.
The initial British Universities monetary support for the SToMP TLTP project lasted for the first three years to an amount of about $1.7M. A further grant of monies has been made available for a further three years in order to set up a business plan to self support the funding of extra courseware modules
The SToMP consortium recently gained one of 10 European awards for excellence with its TLTP project.
QUT has completed two geometrical optics units out of a total of three and these are to linked into the next version of SToMP due out this month.
In such a massive scale project, more inputs are required from other interested academics in order to cover the breadth of a first year introductory physics course in the majority of universities.