Exploring Students' Challenges in Acquiring Physics Practical Skills in Ugandan Secondary Schools: A Case Study Approach

Abstract

At the higher level of secondary schooling, physics education in Ugandan schools focuses on experiments in mechanics, light, and electricity, whereas other fields of physics, such as thermodynamics, electromagnetism, modern physics, and waves, are hardly taught experimentally. The study examines the challenges that students encounter in physics experimentation and their underlying causes. The study was carried out in three secondary schools in Uganda on practical skills based on mechanics, light, and electricity. Student assessments, interviews, and teacher surveys were used in the data gathering process.  The results showed that students struggled with the required tasks related to data manipulation, graph plotting, and conclusion drawing. The challenges are linked to inexperience using certain lab equipment, shyness, time management issues, and unclear connections between theory and practice. The results of the feedback given by the teachers were that the teaching techniques sometimes teach theory more than practice, with the limited labs only able to teach a little practice. The research recommends more practical methods of teaching, which focus more on real-life applications, a higher frequency of lab classes, and easier access to equipment with the purpose of closing the theory-practice divide, as it relates to knowledge and practical learning. Among the research suggestions, the study further asserts that, besides helping the students overcome the challenges in the academic sphere, the new curriculum should also include the overlooked practical experiments that will make the students get a more complete and practical idea of the entire physics course