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Fractions can be a tricky concept for students although they often use the concept of sharing in their daily lives. Notation of fractions and formal vocabulary may be some reasons for that. Students may have difficulty with learning fractions since they do not like behave normal numbers (Ardogan & Ersoy, 2003; Graeber & Triosh, 1990 ). The aim of this paper is to understand the students’ conceptual and procedural understanding of addition and subtraction of fractions. Pirie and Kieren Model is used as a framework. This model is supported with the hands-on activities and implemented with Australian students.

This paper describes an educational analysis of a first year physics experiment on standing waves for engineering students. The educational analysis is based on the ACELL (Advancing Chemistry by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory) approach which includes a statement of educational objectives and an analysis of student learning experiences. The experiment is likely to be found in many physics departments, hence is appropriate to illustrate the ACELL approach in physics. The concepts associated with standing waves are difficult; however, they are underpinned by mathematical formulation which lend themselves to be visualized in experiments. The challenge is to strike a balance between these two for the particular student cohort. In this study, this balance is achieved by using simple equipment and providing appropriate scaffolds for students to associate abstract concepts with concrete visuals. In essence the experiment is designed to adequately manage cognitive resources. Students work in pairs and are questioned and assisted by demonstrators and academic staff during a 2 h practical class. Students were surveyed using the ACELL instrument. Analysis of the data showed that by completing the practical students felt that their understanding of physics had increased. Furthermore, students could see the relevance of this experiment to their engineering studies and that it provided them with an opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. Overall they had a positive learning experience. In short there is a lot of dividend from a small outlay of resources.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Interactive Lecture Demonstrations over traditional instruction on university students’ understanding of heat and temperature. The participants were 327 first year undergraduate students from two science classes in two academic years from the same university in Thailand. One class was the experimental group taught using Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, while the other was the control group taught using traditional instructional methods. The Heat and Temperature Conceptual Evaluation test was administered to the experimental and control groups before and after instruction to evaluate student understanding. We found that the average normalized gain in the experimental group ( = 0.25) was higher than in the control group ( = 0.08). The results indicate that students taught using Interactive Lecture Demonstrations had a better understanding of heat and temperature concepts than students taught using traditional instruction.

Conceptual surveys have become increasingly popular at many levels to probe various aspects of science education research such as measuring student understanding of basic concepts and assessing the effectiveness of pedagogical material. The aim of this study was to construct a valid and reliable multiple‐choice conceptual survey to investigate students’ understanding of introductory quantum physics concepts. We examined course syllabi to establish content coverage, consulted with experts to extract fundamental content areas, and trialled open‐ended questions to determine how the selected content areas align with students’ difficulties. The questions were generated and trialled with different groups of students. Each version of the survey was critiqued by a group of discipline and teaching experts to establish its validity. The survey was administered to 312 students at the University of Sydney. Using the data from this sample, we performed five statistical tests (item difficulty index, item discrimination...

An understanding of mechanical waves is a pre‐requisite for the study of many topics in advanced physics, and indeed in many other disciplines. There have been many research studies in mechanical waves, all of which have revealed that students have trouble with the basic concepts. Therefore, in order for teachers to prepare appropriate instruction for their classes, it is useful to diagnose their students' conceptions—if possible before they enter class. It is for this purpose that many diagnostic instruments have been developed, often in the form of multiple‐choice tests. In this study, we have used the open‐ended Wave Diagnostic Test to develop a multiple‐choice conceptual survey in an evolutionary manner. The two‐year development procedure included open‐ended surveys and interviews involving 299 Thai students and 88 Australian students. The final version, called the Mechanical Waves Conceptual Survey, has been administered to 632 Australian students from high school to second‐year university and 270 Th...

Since their inception in 1993 at an Australian university, the workshop tutorials in physics have evolved and grown beyond the initiating department. In this paper, we adopt an interpretive perspective to: (i) reflect on why the tutorials continue to be successful; (ii) use models from literature to understand that success; and (iii) abstract key features that can inform scholarly inquiry into teaching and learning in higher education in other contexts and discipline areas. Practitioner (action) research and design‐based research not only provide useful methodological frameworks that support the success of the workshop tutorials, but they also offer a worthwhile methodological strategy for fostering scholarly inquiry into university teaching and student learning.

Interactivity, group learning and student engagement are accepted as key features of social constructivist learning theories. The challenge is to understand the interplay between such features in different learning environments. This study focused on the qualitative differences between two interventions—small-groups and whole-class discussions. In both interventions, three short video slices on the abstract topic ‘the physics of superconductivity’ were interspersed with the different discussion styles. The video slices are based on the Bruner stages. Twenty-nine first year university physics students completed a pre-test, underwent the intervention and completed a post-test. The remainder of the data were collected from student drawings, video recordings, observer notes and facilitator feedback. Results indicate that the use of the video slices in both interventions were successful in changing students’ understandings of superconductivity. However, the small groups treatment tended to facilitate questioning, meaning-making and subsequent changes of ideas more so than the whole class discussions. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Two disparate research programs have addressed the challenge of instructional multimedia design. One, based on cognitive load theory, has focused on ways of reducing unnecessary cognitive load during instruction to free up resources for learning. The other, based on constructivism, has centered on interactive multimedia, allowing students to build their own knowledge. Attempting to build on both bodies of literature, in this study, we investigated techniques that can raise the useful cognitive load engendered with linear multimedia. Participating online from home, students were pre- and posttested around a short multimedia intervention that explained Newton's first and second laws. In Experiment 1, students who watched a video dialogue involving alternative conceptions reported investing greater mental effort and achieved higher posttest scores than students who received a standard lecture-style presentation. In Experiment 2, two additional multimedia treatments were evaluated to assess the role of instructional time and the method of addressing alternative conceptions. In all, 272 students participated in the experiments. Interviews suggest that students adopted a more active approach to understanding the material if alternative conceptions were raised. In addition, students who watched the dialogue judged themselves to be similar to the student in the multimedia. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed92:278–296, 2008

In a study to assess how effectively undergraduate physics studies have prepared students for the workplace, we attempted to locate and interview traditional 3-year or 4-year physics students who had graduated in the past five years (2000 to 2004), and the employers of these graduates. The study was limited to recent graduates who have majored in physics and not obtained further or concurrent degrees. Overseas studies of the destinations of physics graduates referred to in this paper have not isolated the group we interviewed as a distinct group. A major finding was that the number of these graduates was unexpectedly low. Indeed, most physics graduates have two degrees. Interviews with graduates and employers suggest that physics graduates have particular strengths in problem solving and are good at applying their skills at the workplace.

In this study, 364 first-year physics students were randomly assigned to one of four online multimedia treatments on Newton's First and Second Laws of Motion: (1) the ‘Exposition’, a concise lecture-style presentation; (2) the ‘Extended Exposition’, the Exposition with additional interesting information; (3) the ‘Refutation’, the Exposition with common misconceptions explicitly stated and refuted; or (4) the ‘Dialogue’, a student–tutor discussion of the same material as in the Refutation. Students were tested using questions from mechanics conceptual inventories before and after watching the multimedia treatments. Results show the Refutation and Dialogue produced the greatest learning gains, with effect sizes of 0.79 and 0.83, respectively, compared with the Exposition. Students with low prior knowledge benefited most, however high prior knowledge learners were not disadvantaged by the misconception-based approach. The findings suggest that online multimedia can be greatly improved, promoting conceptual change in students with all levels of experience, by including a discussion of misconceptions.

This project aimed to quantitatively measure the ability of first year science students to transfer their mathematical skills and knowledge to a physical context. An instrument used in earlier studies to measure transfer of mathematical knowledge was modified for this project, and tested with 49 student volunteers. This paper presents the Transfer Index, a novel way of measuring the degree of transfer of the students' mathematics skills and knowledge. It is demonstrated that the Transfer Index is a useful way of quantifying transfer and that it has predictive validity in a natural educational setting.

Recent research on principles of best practice for designing effective multimedia instruction has rarely taken into account students’ alternative conceptions, which are known to strongly influence learning. The goal of this study was to determine how well students of quantum mechanics could learn ‘vicariously’ by watching a student-tutor dialogue based on alternative conceptions. Two video treatments were created to summarize key aspects of quantum tunneling, a fundamental quantum mechanical phenomenon. One video depicted a student-tutor dialogue, incorporating many of the common alternative conceptions on the topic, and resolving inconsistencies in reasoning through discussion. The other presented the same correct physics material in an expository style without alternative conceptions. Second year physics students were randomly assigned to one of the two treatments and were tested before and after watching the video during a lecture. Results show a statistically significant (p

To succeed within scientific disciplines, using representations, including those based on words, graphs, equations, and diagrams, is important. Research indicates that the use of discipline specific representations (sometimes referred to as expert generated representations), as well as multi-representational use, is critical for problem solving and developing understanding. This paper consolidates these ideas using the Representational Fluency Survey (RFS) over two years with 334 students at The University of Sydney. Analysis shows that there was a significant difference between the representational fluency of the 1st year Fundamental and Regular students (low level 1st year physics courses) compared to the 1st year Advanced, 2nd year, 3rd year and Postgraduate level students. The existence of this distinct gap is further supported by evidence from qualitative coding that students with a high level of representational fluency use a greater number of representations and more visual and symbolic representations to explain their answers. There is no mention of such an overall trend of variation of representational use in extant literature, largely because there have been no studies that compare representational fluency across closely spaced levels of physics, or science, learning.

DNA-based methods for human identification principally rely upon genotyping of short tandem repeat (STR) loci. Electrophoretic-based techniques for variable-length classification of STRs are universally utilized, but are limited in that they have relatively low throughput and do not yield nucleotide sequence information. High-throughput sequencing technology may provide a more powerful instrument for human identification, but is not currently validated for forensic casework. Here, we present a systematic method to perform high-throughput genotyping analysis of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) STR loci using short-read (150 bp) massively parallel sequencing technology. Open source reference alignment tools were optimized to evaluate PCR-amplified STR loci using a custom designed STR genome reference. Evaluation of this approach demonstrated that the 13 CODIS STR loci and amelogenin (AMEL) locus could be accurately called from individual and mixture samples. Sensitivity analysis showed that as few as 18,500 reads, aligned to an in silico referenced genome, were required to genotype an individual (>99% confidence) for the CODIS loci. The power of this technology was further demonstrated by identification of variant alleles containing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the development of quantitative measurements (reads) for resolving mixed samples.

We report on a study of what happened when we recycled a conceptual examination question in a first-year university physics course. The question, which was used for three consecutive years, asked about an astronaut's experience of weighing in an orbiting space-craft. Our original intention was to use a phenomenographic approach to look for differences in students' descriptive answers. Having done that, we decided to add a study of the marks that were awarded to those answers. The first time that the question was re-used, the distribution of answers amongst our phenomenographic categories showed a decrease in the common conception that gravity is zero in the satellite and an increase in explanations in terms of free fall. When the question was re-used a second time, that difference was maintained but it was not significantly increased. The distribution of marks for the question was different over the three years in a way that appears to be unrelated to differences in students' conceptual understandings. Differences in the distribution of marks are more likely to be related to differences in marking procedures. We conclude that studies like this one have the potential to contribute to improvements in university assessment procedures. In particular we propose that phenomenographic analysis could be used in the design of marking schemes.

This paper describes the development of a procedure for investigating the ability of university students to employ their mathematical skills in a range of scientific contexts. This ability is called transfer. An instrument (consisting of a set of questions) to test transfer was designed jointly by three scientists and a mathematician and attempted by 47 students studying first-year science subjects at the University of Sydney. The instrument is described, and some of its strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The performances of the students on the instrument are analysed and interpreted, and a method by which each student's overall transfer ability may be quantified is suggested. Methods for determining a student's ability to transfer specific skills or items of mathematical knowledge are also described.

The School of Physics at the University of Sydney has introduced voluntary workshop tutorials in large first‐year courses. The tutorials are based on informal cooperative groupings with structured worksheets and short hands‐on activities. In this study we explore the relationship between attendance at the workshop tutorials and student performance in examinations. We show that about 80% of the students attend more than two‐thirds of the voluntary tutorials. Discounting the students who attend very few tutorials, on average, examination marks improve significantly with increased tutorial attendance. In particular, on average, students with poor senior high school scores have significantly better examination marks if they work in the same group for eight or more tutorials than those who do not work in the same groups. There is evidence that the improvement in examination performance is more pronounced in qualitative concept questions, most dramatically again for students who did poorly in senior high school.

We report on an investigation of students' ideas about gravity after a semester of instruction in physics at university. There are two aspects to the study which was concerned with students' answers to a carefully designed qualitative examination question on gravity. The first aspect is a classification of the answers and a comparative study of the ways the problem was tackled by two large groups of students who had different backgrounds in physics and were exposed to different teaching styles. The second aspect is to investigate how students link concepts to solve the problem. We used a phenomenographic analysis of student responses to extract patterns of reasoning and alternative conceptions behind the solutions. We found no differences between the classes of answers given by students in the two courses. Our analysis also identifies a hierarchy in the complexity of the hypothetical reasoning pathways, which we interpret as reflecting the ways in which students may link concepts and resolve conflicts as they solve the problem. The hypothetical reasoning pathways may help educators to develop instructional material or lecture room dialogue in order to tease out key issues. An unexpected finding is that there is a discrepancy between our conclusion that the two groups of answers are similar and the distribution of marks awarded by the examiner – which implies that the quality of the answers is different for the two groups.

Hyperresolving (sometimes called ‘superresolving’ or ‘ultraresolving’) phase-only filters can be generated using an optically addressable liquid crystal spatial light modulator. This approach avoids the problems of low efficiency, and coupling between amplitude and phase modulation, that arise when using conventional liquid crystal modulators. When addressed by a programmed light intensity distribution, it allows filters to be changed rapidly to modify the response of a system or permit the investigation of different filter designs. In this paper we present experimental hyperresolved images obtained using an optically addressable parallel-aligned nematic LCD with two zone Toraldo type phase-only filters. The images are compared with theoretical predictions.

The generalized pupil concept has proved useful for representation of focused monochromatic fields. The generalized pupil can also be used to describe, and give insight into, the focusing of different types of ultrashort pulses, including Gaussian beams and focus wave modes.

Summary It is possible to obtain an accurate irradiance distribution for the diffracted wave field from an aperture by the numerical evaluation of the two-dimensional diffraction integrals using a product-integration method in which Simpson's 1/3 rule is applied twice. The calculations can be done quickly using a standard PC by utilizing matrix operations on complex numbers with Matlab. The diffracted wave field can be calculated from the plane of the aperture to the far field without introducing many of the standard approximations that are used to give Fresnel or Fraunhofer diffraction. The numerical method is used to compare the diffracted irradiance distribution from a circular aperture as predicted by Kirchhoff, Rayleigh-Sommerfeld 1 and Rayleigh-Sommerfeld 2 diffraction integrals.

It is shown how the integrated intensity, discussed previously elsewhere, can be used to investigate in a simple way, the process of confocal imaging though a weakly scattering medium. The effect of annular pupils and half-plane apertures are investigated.

In 1995, cooperative learning tutorials were introduced into large first year physics classes at the University of Sydney. This paper describes the effect of these cooperative learning tutorials, called Workshop Tutorials, on student learning from both a quantitative and qualitative point of view. It was found that students attending more than half the total number of tutorials scored significantly better over the year than those attending less than half. Student reaction was almost wholly positive, with particular mention made of the voluntary nature of the tutorials as well as the use of practical, 'hands on' demonstrations within the tutorials.

The axial resolution in a confocal microscope of high aperture using a single-mode optical fibre for illumination and collection is investigated. This information, together with results previously published regarding signal levels, allows the characterization of the instrument and adjustment of the system parameters to achieve desired imaging properties.

The project proposes to build a system which is capable of extracting business intelligence for a manufacturer, from online product reviews. For a particular product, it extracts a list of the discussed features and their associated sentiment scores. Online products reviews and review characteristics are extracted from www.Amazon.com. A two level filtering approach is adapted to choose a set of reviews that are perceived to be useful by customers. The filtering process is based on the concept that the reviewer generated textual content and other characteristics of the review, influence peer customers in making purchasing choices. The filtered reviews are then processed to obtain a relative sentiment score associated with each feature of the product that has been discussed in these reviews. Based on these scores, the customer's impression of each feature of the product can be judged and used for the manufacturers benefit.

As schools start investigating and investing in the idea of 1:1 iPads and tablets, are there any lessons that can be learnt from recent 1:1 laptop deployments? In Australia, since 2008, 1:1 laptops have been introduced into every secondary school. This study reports on a survey designed to investigate frequency and type of laptop use, and the alignment of teacher and student perceptions of that use. Data was obtained from 14 secondary schools from the Catholic Education Office Sydney, involving responses from 1245 Grade 10 science students and 47 science teachers. As part of the analysis, bubble graphs are used to visually represent a teacher's alignment/misalignment with their students' self-reported practices. Results show student and teacher perceptions of use were usually relatively aligned though sometimes very contrasting. The alignment was measured with the use of a 'Misalignment Index'. Three distinct types of teacher/student alignment or misalignment emerge from a graphical analysis of the data. Of the teachers and students sampled, some 30% of teachers were highly aligned, 55% had medium alignment and 15% were badly misaligned with their respective students. Potential uses of the Misalignment Index and analysis tools are discussed.

In recent decades, the literature paid attention to students' conceptions of the nature of disciplines. This study aimed to investigate how students' cohesive and fragment conceptions of physics changed with a major change in senior high school physics syllabus. We obtained measures of conceptions of physics by utilizing a 20-item questionnaire and triangulated by open-ended responses. The sample was 1979 first year university students from three different years surveyed in their first laboratory session. The first cohort of 780 first year university students had experienced the old syllabus in high school and the next two cohorts of 511 and 688 first year university students had experienced a rejuvenated high school syllabus. By establishing the reliability and validity we found that there exists a substantial shift in student conceptions of the cohesiveness of physics coinciding with the school syllabus change. This shift was mirrored in qualitative data. Furthermore, students with more previous engagement in physics learning, on the average, demonstrated less fragmented and more cohesive conceptions with the rejuvenated syllabus than with the old syllabus. © 2013 by ESER, Eurasian Society of Educational Research.

The aim of this study was to investigate an adaptation of the Study Processes Questionnaire for the discipline of physics. A total of 2030 first year physics students at an Australian metropolitan university completed the questionnaire over three different year cohorts. The resultant data has been used to explore whether the adaptation of the questionnaire is justifiable and if meaningful interpretations can be drawn for teaching and learning in the discipline. In extracting scales for deep and surface approaches to learning, we have excised several items, retaining an adequate subset. Reflecting trends in literature, our deep scale is very reliable while the surface scale is not so reliable. Our results show that the behaviour of the mean scale scores for students in different streams in first year physics is in agreement with expectations. Furthermore, different year cohort performance on the scales reflects changes in senior high school syllabus. Our experiences in adaptation, validation and checking for reliability is of potential use for others engaged in contextualising the Study Processes Questionnaire, and adds value to the use of the questionnaire for improving student learning in specific discipline areas. © 2006-2013 by ESER, Eurasian Society of Educational Research. All Rights Reserved.

While blended learning has been around for sometime, the interplay between lecture recordings, lecture attendance and grades needs further examination particularly for large cohorts of over 1000 students in 500 seat lecture theatres. This paper reports on such an investigation with a cohort of 1450 first year psychology students’ who indicated whether they frequently attended lectures or not. The division helped ascertain differences and similarities in preferences for utilising online recordings. Overall, non-frequent attendees were more likely not to use lecture recordings (48.1%) to make up a missed lecture than frequent attendees (34.3%). Surprisingly, in the last week of semester, 29% of students reported not yet accessing lecture recordings. Students had the intention to use lecture recordings as they envisaged these to be helpful for learning and commented that they would be adversely affected if recordings were not available. In fact, students are passionate about lecture recordings. Analytics show that after lecture 7, each lecture recording attracted 600 or less unique visits (hits) supporting the finding that most students make strategic use of learning resources available within the blended learning environment.

As universities attempt to integrate active learning into their lectures, a range of strategies is emerging. Amongst the strategies is pre-prepared worksheets which students work through, facilitated by the lecturer. Despite the fact that worksheets have not yet been the subject of much research activity, there are instances of their use. Once such instance is by a pair of physics lecturers at Mahidol University, Thailand. The worksheets, called guided worksheets as they provide structure for students to take notes as the content in the lectures progresses, are prepared by the lecturers and have been in use since 2004. Evaluations showed that the guided worksheets met their intent but there were issues around certain topics which students found challenging. Concerted effort lead to the development of research based specialized guided worksheets for those topics that had issues. These specialized guided worksheets requiring substantially more interactions and student problem solving in line with active learning strategies, have been in use since 2012. This paper aims to describe the design of the specialized guided worksheets for the topic of electric field, and its evaluation. Pre- and post-tests were implemented over 2 years. The first was with guided worksheets with 260 students in 2011, and the second included specialized guided worksheets with 163 students in 2012. Gains on student understanding were higher in 2012 and students who were interviewed indicated that they found the specialized guided worksheets helpful for learning. The results indicate that the specialized guided worksheets made a difference in topics that students find challenging.

Background: Tapioca has been the staple food for the people of Kerala, India. Recent studies show that it has become more toxic due to changes in environment. There have been few studies in recent years to observe the effects of consuming more toxic tapioca. Objective: The combination of pregnancy and tapioca diet on blood pressure (BP), serum alkaline phosphatase, serum globulin and A:G ratio are studied to assess the general health and liver function. Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study design was conducted in the Obstetrics out-patient department of a tertiary care hospital of central Kerala. The systolic and diastolic blood pressures were determined. The serum alkaline phosphatase, total proteins, and serum albumin levels were tested in a sample of blood collected under aseptic conditions. The serum globulin values were calculated from total protein and serum albumin values by subtraction. The A:G values were calculated by dividing the values of serum albumin and serum globulin. This study was conducted after obtaining ethical clearance from the institute. Result: There were significant differences (p = 0.002) in the mean values of systolic and diastolic blood pressure in the third-trimester pregnancy. There was significant difference in the mean value of serum alkaline phosphatase levels in the first trimester (p = 0.007), the second trimester (p = 0.001) and the third trimester (p = 0.000001). There was significant difference in the mean value of serum globulin in the first trimester (p = 0.03), the second trimester (p = 0.0003), and the third trimester (0.000008). The A:G ratio showed significant difference in the first trimester (p = 0.0003), the second trimester (p = 0.0001), and the third trimester (p = 0.001). Conclusion: The above study shows that there is significant decrease in systolic and diastolic blood pressure towards the third trimester compared to normal controls. This is comparable to other similar studies. The alkaline phosphatase levels are also comparable with the values obtained in other studies. The serum globulin values were also comparable to other similar studies. The decreasing A:G ratio values were unique to this population.

We recently developed a multiple-choice conceptual survey in mechanical waves. The development, evaluation, and demonstration of the use of the survey were reported elsewhere [A. Tongchai et al., Developing, evaluating and demonstrating the use of a conceptual survey in mechanical waves, Int. J. Sci. Educ. 31, 2437 (2009)ISEDEB0950-069310.1080/09500690802389605]. We administered the survey to 902 students from seven different groups ranging from high school to second year university. As an outcome of that analysis we were able to identify several conceptual models which the students seemed to be using when answering the questions in the survey. In this paper we attempt to investigate the strength with which the students were committed to these conceptual models, as evidenced by the consistency with which they answered the questions. For this purpose we focus on the patterns of student responses to questions in one particular subtopic, wave propagation. This study has three main purposes: (1) to investigate the consistency of student conceptions, (2) to explore the relative usefulness of different analysis techniques, and (3) to determine what extra information a study of consistency can give about student understanding of basic concepts. We used two techniques: first, categorizing and counting, which is widely used in the science education community, and second, model analysis, recently introduced into physics education research. The manner in which categorizing and counting is used is very diverse while model analysis has been employed only in prescriptive ways. Research studies have reported that students often use their conceptual models inconsistently when solving a series of questions that test the same idea. Our results support their conclusions. Moreover, our findings suggest that students who have had more experiences in physics learning seem to use the scientifically accepted models more consistently. Further, the two analysis techniques have different advantages and disadvantages. Our findings show that model analysis can be used in more diverse ways, provides flexibility in analyzing multiple-choice questions, and provides more information about consistency and inconsistency of student conceptions. An unexpected finding is that studying waves in other contexts (for example, quantum mechanics or electromagnetism) leads to more consistent answers about mechanical waves. The suggestion is that studying more abstract topics may solidify students’ understanding of more concrete waves. While this might be considered to be intuitive, we have not actually found direct empirical studies supporting this conjecture.

In 2006 a new type of tutorial, called Map Meeting, was successfully trialled with novice first year physics students at the University of Sydney, Australia. Subsequently, in first semester 2007 a large-scale experiment was carried out with 262 students who were allocated either to the strongly scaffolding Map Meetings or to the less scaffolding Workshop Tutorials, which have been run at the University of Sydney since 1995. In this paper we describe what makes Map Meetings more scaffolding than Workshop Tutorials—where the level of scaffolding represents the main difference between the two tutorial types. Using a mixed methods approach to triangulate results, we compare the success of the two with respect to both student tutorial preference and examination performance. In summary, Map Meetings had a higher retention rate and received more positive feedback from students—students liked the strongly scaffolding environment and felt that it better helped them understand physics. A comparison of final examination performances of students who had attended at least 10 out of 12 tutorials revealed that only 11% of Map Meeting students received less than 30 out of 90 marks compared to 21% of Workshop Tutorial students, whereas there were no differences amongst high-achieving students. Map Meetings was therefore particularly successful in helping low-achieving novices learn physics.