Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; and
Department of Bioscience - Zoophysiology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Adv Physiol Educ. 2016 Sep;40(3):313-8. doi: 10.1152/advan.00029.2016.
The laboratory has been given a central role in physiology education, and teachers report that it is motivating for students to undertake experimental work on live animals or measuring physiological responses on the students themselves. Since motivation is a critical variable for academic learning and achievement, then we must concern ourselves with questions that examine how students engage in laboratory work and persist at such activities. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how laboratory work influences student motivation in physiology. We administered the Lab Motivation Scale to assess our students' levels of interest, willingness to engage (effort), and confidence in understanding (self-efficacy). We also asked students about the role of laboratory work for their own learning and their experience in the physiology laboratory. Our results documented high levels of interest, effort, and self-efficacy among the students. Correlation analyses were performed on the three motivation scales and exam results, yet a significant correlation was only found between self-efficacy in laboratory work and academic performance at the final exam. However, almost all students reported that laboratory work was very important for learning difficult concepts and physiological processes (e.g., action potential), as the hands-on experiences gave a more concrete idea of the learning content and made the content easier to remember. These results have implications for classroom practice as biology students find laboratory exercises highly motivating, despite their different personal interests and subject preferences. This highlights the importance of not replacing laboratory work by other nonpractical approaches, for example, video demonstrations or computer simulations.
实验室在生理学教育中扮演着核心角色，教师们报告称，让学生在活体动物上进行实验工作或测量学生自身的生理反应，这对学生来说是很有激励作用的。由于动机是学术学习和成就的关键变量，那么我们必须关注这样一些问题，即检查学生如何参与实验室工作以及如何坚持这些活动。本研究的目的是调查实验室工作如何影响生理学学生的学习动机。我们采用了实验室动机量表来评估学生的兴趣水平、参与意愿（努力）和对理解（自我效能）的信心。我们还询问了学生关于实验室工作对他们自己学习的作用以及他们在生理学实验室的经历。我们的研究结果记录了学生们表现出的高水平的兴趣、努力和自我效能感。我们对三个动机量表和考试成绩进行了相关分析，但仅发现实验室工作中的自我效能感与期末考试的学术表现之间存在显著相关性。然而，几乎所有学生都报告说，实验室工作对于学习困难的概念和生理过程（例如动作电位）非常重要，因为实际操作经验更具体地了解了学习内容，使内容更容易记住。这些结果对课堂实践具有启示意义，因为生物学学生发现实验室练习非常有激励作用，尽管他们有不同的个人兴趣和学科偏好。这突出了不通过其他非实践方法（例如视频演示或计算机模拟）替代实验室工作的重要性。
