Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities

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written by Xueli Zou

To help students develop the scientific abilities desired in the 21st century workplace, four different types of student design tasks--observation, verification, application, and investigation experiments--have been developed and implemented in our calculus-based introductory courses. Students working in small groups are engaged in designing and conducting their own experiments to observe some physical phenomena, test a physical principle, build a real-life device, solve a complex problem, or conduct an open-inquiry investigation. A preliminary study has shown that, probed by a performance-based task, the identified scientific abilities are more explicitly demonstrated by design-lab students than non-design lab students. In this paper, detailed examples of the design tasks and assessment results will be reported.

Physics Education Research Conference 2007
Part of the PER Conference series
Greensboro, NC: August 1-2, 2007
Volume 951, Pages 212-215

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Published: November 12, 2007

Subjects	Levels	Resource Types
Education Foundations - Learning Theory Education Practices - Active Learning - Curriculum Development = Laboratory	- Lower Undergraduate	- Reference Material = Research study

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Mirror:: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2820936
Access Rights:: Limited free access and
Available by subscription and
Available for purchase
Restriction:: © 2007 2007 American Institute of Physics.
DOI:: 10.1063/1.2820936
NSF Number:: 0242845
PACSs:: 01.40.Fk; 01.50.Pa; 01.40.gb; 01.50.Qb
Keywords:: PERC 2007, design of experiments, open-inquiry investigation, physics, problem solving, research initiatives, student experiments
Record Cloner:: Metadata instance created June 10, 2009 by Jenny Rempel
Record Updated:: July 16, 2013 by Lyle Barbato
Last Update when Cataloged:: November 12, 2007
Other Collections:: The PSRC

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<a href="https://www.compadre.org/portal/items/detail.cfm?ID=9112">Zou, Xueli. "Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities." Paper presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2007, Greensboro, NC, August 1-2, 2007.</a>

AIP Format

X. Zou, , presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2007, Greensboro, NC, 2007, WWW Document, (https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=9112&DocID=2024).

AJP/PRST-PER

X. Zou, Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2007, Greensboro, NC, 2007, <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=9112&DocID=2024>.

APA Format

Zou, X. (2007, August 1-2). Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities. Paper presented at Physics Education Research Conference 2007, Greensboro, NC. Retrieved May 1, 2025, from https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=9112&DocID=2024

Chicago Format

Zou, Xueli. "Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities." Paper presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2007, Greensboro, NC, August 1-2, 2007. https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=9112&DocID=2024 (accessed 1 May 2025).

MLA Format

Zou, Xueli. "Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities." Physics Education Research Conference 2007. Greensboro, NC: 2007. 212-215 Vol. 951 of PER Conference. 1 May 2025 <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=9112&DocID=2024>.

BibTeX Export Format

@inproceedings{ Author = "Xueli Zou", Title = {Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities}, BookTitle = {Physics Education Research Conference 2007}, Pages = {212-215}, Address = {Greensboro, NC}, Series = {PER Conference}, Volume = {951}, Month = {August 1-2}, Year = {2007} }

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%A Xueli Zou %T Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities %S PER Conference %V 951 %D August 1-2 2007 %P 212-215 %C Greensboro, NC %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=9112&DocID=2024 %O Physics Education Research Conference 2007 %O August 1-2 %O application/pdf

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%0 Conference Proceedings %A Zou, Xueli %D August 1-2 2007 %T Using Students' Design Tasks to Develop Scientific Abilities %B Physics Education Research Conference 2007 %C Greensboro, NC %V 951 %P 212-215 %S PER Conference %8 August 1-2 %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=9112&DocID=2024

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