Promoting students' conceptual knowledge using video analysis on tablet computers

Abstract

The common idea of video analysis in physics education so far is that students record the motion of an object using a video camera, transfer the video on a computer and analyze it with a suitable software. In our approach students perform video analysis time-efficiently using only tablet computers. We present the results of a study which examines learning effects of tablet PC-supported video analysis in high school physics courses in a pre-post-test design with treatment and control groups for two essential topics of mechanics, the uniform motion (N = 109 matched samples) and the accelerated motion (N = 70 matched samples). The results show that the treatment leads to significantly higher learning gain regarding conceptual knowledge in comparison to traditional teaching without video-based motion analysis, especially for the cognitively more demanding topic. We discuss the results in the context of learning theories and reveal implications for future research.