Multimedia‑Aided Technologies for Effective Learning of Quantum Physics at the University Level

Abstract

Physics education has been identified as one of the public sectors that are mostly influenced by technological developments. This paper adopted the quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design to assess the effects of multimedia-aided technologies (MAT) on undergraduate students’ performance in quantum physics (QP) at the University of Rwanda College of Education (UR-CE). The researcher used purposive sampling to get 385 undergraduate students. Participants were randomly allocated into experimental (group A) and control (group B) groups. Group A (187 students) students were taught selected topics of quantum physics (blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect, Compton effect, wave aspects of particles, De Broglie’s hypothesis, diffraction, interference and double-slit experiment, model of the atom, uncertainty relations, wave function, and Schrodinger equations) for 6 weeks using multimedia-aided technologies and engage, predict, observe, and explain (EPOE) method, whereas group B (187 students) was taught same topics during the same period with a lecture method. The results of ANCOVA revealed that the group’s performance was the same (p > .05) before learning with no effect size (.000), while they diverged after learning with different teaching interventions. The significance was very high and statistically different (p < .001) with a large effect size (> .5). This implies that students taught with multimedia-aided technologies (experimental group) outperformed those students taught with lecture teaching methods (control group). Thus, the study recommends that educators should adapt teaching using MAT and EPOE strategy not only in QP but also in other domains of physics to improve active engagement, understanding levels, and academic achievement.