That is, depending on how they are run. Often these labs are very procedural. Students do little more than follow steps to gather their data, perform their analysis and confirm something already taught in class.
However, a study from Stanford and the University of British Columbia found that giving students a little more freedom promoted critical thinking abilities through autonomous and iterative decision making.
The study followed students in an introductory physics pendulum lab seen in many first year engineering university physics classes. The study assessed what the students were and weren’t learning in the lab and then modified instructions to see how it would affect the learning experience of subsequent participants.
Instead of performing a test and declaring errors in the data to some unknown source, as is the case with traditional labs, students were asked to explain discrepancies and modify how they collected the data.
Some of the tactics students used to improve their results included:
- Employing more trials to reduce standard error,
- Marking spots to assess amplitude and angle,
- And conduct reaction time assessments to find one student to operate the stop watch
By perfecting the lab itself, emulating processes used by real world scientists, the students gained the same level of confidence professional’s gain in their results, abilities and understanding of the system.
"This is sort of a radical way to think about teaching, having students practice the thinking skills you want them to develop, but in another way it is obvious common sense," said co-author Carl Wieman, a professor at Stanford.
The results of the study also demonstrated students were 12 times more likely to suggest improvements to the experiment than those in the traditional labs. Additionally, this critical thinking followed the students into later courses.
Wieman points out that as more policy decisions are based on scientific data it is important to understand how that data was collected, its uncertainty and how it can be used to make meaningful decisions. This iterative STEM teaching approach can work to improve this process in future generations.
"Students leave this class with fundamentally different ideas about interpretation of data and testing against model predictions, whether it's about climate change or vaccine safety or swinging pendulums,” said Wieman.
The research will be expanded to other STEM courses and programs to attempt to encourage expert-like behaviour earlier in a student’s education. The hope is to better prepare them for independent projects and real world STEM careers.
"Students tell me that it helped them learn what it means to do science and helped to see themselves as scientists and critical thinkers," said lead author and Stanford post doctorate Natasha Holmes. "I think it's done a whole lot for their motivation, attitudes and beliefs about what they're capable of. So at least from that perspective, I think experiment design that encourages iterative thinking will have huge benefits for students in the long run."
This study suggests that a more hands-on exploratory approach to learning has significant benefits, however many university courses still opt to spoon feed content to their students. Perhaps it’s time for us to take a step back and reintroduce exploration to the institution of undergraduate education?
Were you spoon-fed much of your STEM education? How much did you retain? Do you think a more hands-on exploratory approach is better suited for STEM? Comment below.