Comparing students’ flow states during apparatus-based versus video-based lab activities

Abstract This paper presents a study comparing physics students experimenting with physical apparatus (the apparatus group) versus students conducting the same experiments using videos of those experiments in place of the physical apparatus (the video group). In our study, we compare the results of an attitudinal survey designed to examine students’ mental states and sense of engagement with the material. In terms of the eight-channel flow model, we found that students who conduct design labs structured according to the Investigative Science Learning Environment mostly found themselves located in the productive learning zones of arousal, flow and control. We also found a small but consistent difference between the apparatus and video groups: in the video group there were slightly more students who were in the less productive zones of worry and anxiety, reflective of feelings of low skillfulness combined with a sense that the task was very challenging. We discuss the implications of these findings for the design of scaffolded inquiry tasks such as ISLE design labs in new virtual environments. We suggest that such activities, performed in virtual learning environments, may require different levels and types of scaffolding compared with the same activities performed in the in-person classroom with physical apparatus.