Helping students make controlled experiments more informative

We examine how encouraging students to compare rather than isolate variables affects their experimentation strategies and insights. We designed a week-long, technology-enhanced inquiry module on car collisions that logs students' interactions with a visualization. Physics students (N=166) were assigned to conditions that prompted them either to isolate or compare variables. Students responded to pretests, posttests, and embedded prompts that assessed students' understanding of motion graphs and collisions. Both groups made significant pretest to posttest gains. Students in the compare treatment used more diverse experimentation strategies than students in the isolate treatment. Compare students made nuanced interpretations of collision events based on threshold values. Case studies illustrate how comparing rather than isolating helped students use wide-ranging strategies to reach complex insights. The findings illustrate the value of encouraging multiple approaches to experimentation and connecting experimentation to real-life contexts.

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