Students’ Perceptions of Learning Effiency of Introductory Physics Course

The aim of this study was by using students’ self-assessments to identify the learning efficiency of introductory(mechanics and waves) physics course connecting physics to students’ everyday life. Physics is one of the mostdifficult courses for students, mainly because its presentation is theoretical, mathematical and abstract withouteveryday applications and examples. Moreover, connections to students’ everyday life are crucial for learner’smental construction of the information they learn and for achieving meaningful learning. The findings of thisstudy are significant in evaluating the learning efficiency of the physics course, which was presented byconnection to students’ everyday life. The sample consisted of a total of 92 first year undergraduates, 82 ofwhich were male and 10 were female. Data was collected by a likert type scale which was prepared in line withthe post-then-pre test method called “Students’ Perceptions of Learning – Students’ Self-Assessment” developedby the Author. Hake’s formula was used in order to calculate learning efficiency. The findings of this studyindicated that learning efficiencies were high for the areas in which students were interested in everyday life.Moreover, that learning efficiencies were higher for topics students had learnt before in comparison to new ones.Mean that learning efficiency of the lesson was calculated as 0,5 , which was between 0,3 and 0,7 , and thusindicated moderate learning efficiency.