A context-aware ubiquitous learning approach to conducting scientific inquiry activities in a science park

Abstract

Fostering students' scientific inquiry competence has been recognised as being an important and challenging objective of science education. To strengthen the understanding of science theories or notations, researchers have suggested conducting some learning activities in the field via operating relevant devices. In a traditional in-field scientific inquiry activity, the teacher usually lets the students operate the devices on their own after demonstrating the operational procedure. With such an approach, the students are likely to suspend the practice when they encounter problems; moreover, it is difficult for the students to connect what they have learned from the textbooks with the field practice. To deal with this problem, this study presents a context-aware ubiquitous learning system with sensing technology to detect and examine the real-world learning behaviours of students, such that personalised learning guidance and feedback can be provided; moreover, the students' experiences of operating those scientific devices, such as solar power equipment or the constellation simulators, can be conjunct to the knowledge learned from the textbooks. The experimental results from a science course of an elementary school show that this innovative approach is able to improve the learning achievements of students as well as enhance their learning motivation.