Physics competition to inspire learning and improve soft skills: a case of the Chain Experiment
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Physics competition to inspire learning and improve soft skills: a case of the Chain Experiment Daniel Dziob1,2 · Urszula Górska1,3,4 · Tomasz Kołodziej1 · Mojca Čepič5 Accepted: 19 August 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The Chain Experiment competition has been held successfully for 6 years in Poland and is attracting growing interest. The competition provides participants with a task that involves designing and constructing a contraption that is an element in a chain of events that are based on various physical phenomena. The contraptions are then linked together in a chain and made to run consecutively. The operation of a contraption starts when it receives a ball from the preceding contraption and ends when it releases another ball to the next contraption. The process of constructing the contraptions includes elements of design education. This paper examines whether participating in the competition has a positive impact on the soft skills, social abilities and motivation of the participants, as well as their learning performance, mainly in physics. Questionnaires completed after the fifth running of the competition suggest that active participation in the Chain Experiment could have a positive impact on participants’ soft skills and their abilities to solve problems, and it might also increase scientific knowledge, general interest in physics and science and motivation to be involved in similar challenges. The claim is that the format of the competition can stimulate versatile development of the participants and is a good way to arouse students’ interests in physics and engineering, even in the very early stages of their education. Keywords Physics competition · Informal learning · Soft skills · Scientific practice · Physics education
* Daniel Dziob [email protected] 1
Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
2
Department of Biophysics, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland
3
Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
4
Department of Neurophysiology, Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
5
Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Introduction Technological developments mean that many educators and governments are now focused on education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Current reports suggest that learning STEM subjects well creates opportunities for better-paid jobs and decreases the risk of future unemployment (Langdon et al. 2011). However, besides scientific and/or technological knowledge, employers nowadays also expect ‘soft skills’ (Symonds et al. 2011; Blom and Saeki 2011), which are easier to describe than to define. The literature refers to soft skills as “personality traits, goals, motivations, and preferences that are valued in the labor market, in school, and in many other domains” (Heckman and Kautz 2012) or “social toolkits for success in everyday
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