Constructionism and microworlds as part of a 21st century learning activity to impact student engagement and confidence in physics

Abstract

The affordances of microworld simulations to promote student engagement and motivation are well documented in the literature. These technologies which can be highly have the potential to enhance a student’s learning experience. Nevertheless their widespread use in mainstream secondary school classrooms remains limited as these technologies do not sit well in conventional classroom settings, where short class durations, didactic pedagogy and an emphasis on teaching to the test prevail. The problems in secondary school STEM education, such as declining number of students considering a career in science related disciplines, have often been linked to didactic teaching styles in classrooms, with an emphasis on transference of knowledge from the teacher to student and where text books are the main source of curriculum content. In physics, teaching is often focused on the application of mathematical formulae and lacks context and applicability to real world problems. As a result many students find physics a ‘difficult and hard subject to study’ leading to poor motivation and low engagement with the subject. This research brings three key elements together - microworld technology, a constructionist, contextualised pedagogy and a 21st century learning model – to investigate their combined impact on student engagement and confidence in physics. Students worked in teams using a constructionist microworld simulation to build electrical circuits. An exploratory case study was carried out involving 39 secondary school students (aged ~15/16) participating in 4 separate physics workshops. An attitudinal questionnaire was used for quantitative data capture, while focus groups and observation provided rich qualitative data for triangulation. The findings from the study indicate positive changes in student engagement, confidence in physics and attitude to the use of technology for learning. The qualitative data provides context for these findings, which while being based on a modest sample in terms of the number of participants and duration of the learning experience, nevertheless support the hypothesis that a 21st century pedagogical approach is a suitable framework for exploiting the potential of microworlds to promote engagement and confidence in physics.