Teaching physics in a physiologically meaningful manner

The learning outcome of a physics laboratory course for medical students was examined in an interdisciplinary field study and discussed for the electrical physiology (“Propagation of Excitation and Nerve Cells”). At the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (LMU) at a time about 300 medicine students were assessed in two successive years. Students from the control group worked with standard experiments, while students from the treatment group performed newly developed “addressee-specific” experiments, designed to guide students to transfer physics knowledge to physiological problems. The assessment took place within the laboratory course on physiology, after the students had finished their laboratory classes in physics, and consisted of the construction of a concept map with additional multiple choice questions. The results showed that standard physics experiments are not adequate for teaching students to transfer physical principles to physiology. Introducing new addressee-specific experiments enriched the physics laboratory course by improving student attitudes toward physics and demonstrating better ability of students to relate concepts of physics and medicine, and overall to improve their understanding of the physics taught in the course.