Investigating the effects of grouping criteria on physics laboratory classes

Abstract

Physics laboratory students are usually grouped according to surnames or friendships. In this work, we investigate if there is an optimal grouping type for such classes. We grouped students according to different categories for each experiment during one academic term. We found that students in same gender groups had slightly higher quiz scores, while same-gender and same-age groups had the lowest experiment errors. Meanwhile, free groupings resulted in the lowest scores and some of the highest errors. We hope this work would help improve academic learning and performance in physics laboratory classes.