Evaluation of the Fizica Altfel Program

The study on the impact of the Fizica Altfel program on Physics teachers and students is the first of its kind in Romania. During the research, the progress of both categories was measured between the time they started participating in the program and the time the intervention was completed. The progress of the experimental group was analyzed by comparing it with a control group, teachers and students respectively, who did not previously benefit from the Fizica Altfel program.

The study design was quasi-experimental and involved a team of national experts (teachers, statisticians) and two international academic researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education in Kiel, Germany. The evaluation tools developed and implemented were the Pedagogical Knowledge Test (PCK) to assess teachers’ competence to apply inquiry-based learning (IBL) in the classroom, the test to assess students’ specific physics skills and standardized questionnaires for students and teachers, which aimed to analyze motivation, interest and other perceptions of the teaching-learning process.

 

According to the study, the Fizica Altfel program had an important influence on the teachers who followed the course and participated in the support mechanism initiated by CEAE, in the sense that they applied the strategies specific to investigative learning in the classroom, contributing to the improvement of students’ results . According to the cited document, the use of teaching-learning strategies specific to learning through investigation, such as those transmitted in the Fizica Altfel program, contributes to students’ acquiring specific skills from the school curriculum to a greater extent than traditional didactic strategies. At the same time, the use of inquiry learning in the classroom increased students’ interest in physics and had a positive impact on their cognitive activation.

 

The study is available only in Romanian.