Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

Contents
Introduction 1
Why should I read this booklet? 1
How much teaching time should I allocate to practical work? 1
Can I use the practicals in these booklets in a different order? 1
What resources will I need? 2
Is there a limit to the class size? 2
Why should I teach my students practical skills? 3
Points to consider 3
What are the practical skills required by this course? 5
Summary of each of the seven skills 5
A sequence for introducing the skills 7
Ways of doing practical work 9
Keeping records 12
How is a practical activity organised? 13
Teaching AS skills 15
Teaching students to set up and manipulate apparatus 15
Teaching students to make measurements and observations 15
Teaching students to record and present observations and data 17
Teaching students to analyse data and draw conclusions 19
Teaching students to evaluate procedures 21
Designing a practical course for the AS year 23
Planning the course 23
Planning lessons and teaching the course 24
Planning for a circus 25
Appendix 1: Possible AS practical activities 26
Appendix 2: Examples of AS practicals 37
Terminal Velocity 38
Acceleration down a Slope 42
Triangle of Forces Board 47
Finding the Mass of a Metre Rule using the Principle of Moments 51
Finding the Densities of Different Materials 55
Elasticity and Springs 60
Finding the Young Modulus of a Wire 65
Measuring the Resistivity of a Wire 70
Potential Divider 74
Measuring g using a Pendulum 78
Appendix 3: Useful resources 82

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

Introduction
You may have been teaching AS and A level physics for many years or perhaps you are new
to the game. Whatever the case may be, you will be keen to ensure that you prepare your
students as effectively as possible for their examinations. The use of a well-structured
scheme of practical work will certainly help in this ambition. However it can do so much
more. Science students who are thoroughly trained and experienced in practical skills will
have a ‘feel’ for the subject and a confidence in their own abilities that is far greater than that
of students with a purely theoretical background. It is true that there are branches of physics
that might be described as purely theoretical but they are in the minority. Essentially, physics
is an experimental subject and we owe it to our students to ensure that those who pursue
science further have the necessary basic practical skills to take forward into their future
careers. Furthermore, the basic skills of planning, analysis and evaluation will be of great
value to those who pursue non-science careers.

Why should I read this booklet?

You may be wondering why you should need a booklet like this. If your practical skills are of
a high order and you feel confident teaching these skills to others, you probably don’t need it
(although you might find some of the exercises described in the appendices useful).
However, if you are like the majority of us, a little help and support is likely to be appreciated.
This booklet aims to provide at least some of this support.
The booklet is designed for the teacher, not for the student. Its objective is to provide a
framework within which teachers can develop their confidence in teaching practical skills.
Experience suggests that as this confidence grows, the time that teachers are prepared to
spend on teaching practical skills also grows.

How much teaching time should I allocate to practical work?

The syllabus stipulates that at least 20% of teaching time should be allocated to practical
work. This is in addition to any time the teacher chooses to use for practical demonstrations
to illustrate the theory syllabus.
This emphasis on practical work is not misplaced. If the specific practical papers (papers 3
and 5) are considered in isolation, they represent 23% of the examination. However, practical
work is not merely a necessary preparation for the practical papers. Questions in the theory
papers may also assume an understanding of experimental data or practical techniques.
The theory papers also give a considerable weighting to the skills of handling, applying and
evaluating information, and one of the ways in which students acquire these skills is through
their course of practical work.
In planning a curriculum, teachers should therefore expect to build in time for developing
practical skills. If, for example, the total teaching time allowed for Physics is 5 hours per week
over 35 weeks, then a minimum of 1 hour per week for practical work should be built into the
plan. In this way, over the year a minimum of 35 hours for practical work is made available.
Bearing in mind the weighting given to assessment objectives that relate to information
handling and problem solving, 35 hours of practical work should be regarded as an absolute
minimum.

Can I use the practicals in these booklets in a different order?

It is assumed in these booklets that for A level candidates, the AS work will be taught in the
first year of the course, with the A2 work being covered in the second year. If the linear A
Level assessment route is used, care should be taken with regard to the order in which
practical exercises are used, as the skills practiced in these booklets are hierarchical in
nature, i.e. the basic skills established in the AS booklet are extended and developed in the
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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

A2 booklet. Thus, students will need to have practiced basic skills using AS exercises before
using these skills to tackle more demanding A2 exercises.
The exercises in these booklets are given in syllabus order. A teacher may well decide to use
a different teaching sequence, but the point made above regarding AS and A2 exercises still
applies.

What resources will I need?

For a practical course in A-level physics to be successful, it is not necessary to provide
sophisticated equipment. Some of the more advanced practicals in these booklets may
require less easily obtainable equipment, but the vast majority can be performed using the
basic equipment and materials in the laboratory.
A list of basic resources regularly required for assessment may be found in the syllabus. A
more detailed list of apparatus suitable for teaching purposes may be found in the CIE
booklet ‘Planning For Practical Science in Secondary Schools’.

Is there a limit to the class size?

There is a limit to the class size that is manageable in a laboratory situation, particularly
when students may be moving about. The actual size may be determined by the size of the
room, but as a general guide, 15 - 20 students is the maximum that one teacher can
reasonably manage, both for safety reasons and so that adequate support can be given to
each student. Larger numbers would require input from another person with appropriate
qualifications, or alternatively would require the class to be divided into two groups for
practical lessons.

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

Why should I teach my students practical skills?

Although this section is likely to be read once only, it is arguably the most important, for, if it
convinces some readers that practical work is an essential part of physics and underpins the
whole teaching programme, one of the aims of publishing this booklet will have been
achieved.

Points to consider
• It’s fun! The majority of students thoroughly enjoy practical work. The passion that many
scientists have for their subject grew out of their experiences in practical classes.
Students who enjoy what they are doing are likely to carry this enthusiasm with them
and so be better motivated in all parts of the course.
• Learning is enhanced by participation as students tend to remember activities they have
performed more easily, thus benefiting their long-term understanding of the subject.
Students who simply memorise and recall facts find it difficult to apply their knowledge to
an unfamiliar context. Experiencing and using practical skills helps develop the ability to
use information in a variety of ways, thus enabling students to apply their knowledge and
understanding more readily.
• The integration of practical work into the teaching programme quite simply brings the
theory to life. Teachers often hear comments from students such as “I’m glad we did that
practical because I can see what the book means now.” and “It’s much better doing it
than talking about it.”
• Physics, in common with other sciences, is by its very nature a practical subject – both
historically and in the modern world. The majority of students who enter careers in
science need to employ at least basic practical skills at some time in their career.
• A practical course plays a part in developing many cross-curricular skills including
literacy, numeracy, ICT and communication skills. It develops the ability to work both in
groups and independently with confidence. It enhances critical thinking skills and it
requires students to make judgements and decisions based on evidence, some of which
may well be incomplete or flawed. It helps to make students more self-reliant and less
dependent on information provided by the teacher.
• The skills developed are of continued use in a changing scientific world. While
technological advances have changed the nature of many practical procedures, the
investigative nature of practical science is unchanged. The processes of observation,
hypothesis formation, testing, analysis of results and drawing conclusions will always be
the processes of investigative science. The ability to keep an open mind in the
interpretation of data and develop an appreciation of scientific integrity is of great value
both in science and non-science careers.
• Practical work is not always easy and persistence is required for skills and confidence to
grow. Students often relish this challenge and develop a certain pride in a job well done.
• The more experience students have of a variety of practical skills, the better equipped
they will be to perform well in the practical exams, both in terms of skills and confidence.
Some teachers have argued that the skills required for paper 3 can be developed simply
by practising past papers. However, experience suggests that this approach does not
usually produce good results, and that confidence in practical work will be greatly
enhanced by a broader range of practical experience. Similarly for paper 5, it has been
suggested that planning, analysis and evaluation could be taught theoretically.
However, without hands-on experience of manipulating their own data, putting their
plans into action and evaluating their own procedures and results, students will find this
section difficult and will be at a distinct disadvantage in the examination. Those students

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

who achieve the highest grades do so because they can draw on personal experience,
and so are able to picture themselves performing the procedure they are describing, or
recall analysing their own results from a similar experiment. Students with a bank of
practical experience are much more likely to perform well than those with limited
practical skills.

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

What are the practical skills required by this course?

The syllabus specifies the practical skills to be assessed by providing generic mark schemes
for the practical papers. These mark schemes divide practical skills into four broad areas.
• Manipulation, measurement and observation AS
• Presentation of data and observations AS
• Analysis, conclusions and evaluation AS and A2
• Planning A2
For teaching purposes, it is helpful to subdivide the first and third of these broad areas into
slightly narrower ones. Students will also find it helpful to think about the sequence in which
practical skills are used in a typical scientific investigation.
This course addresses practical skills under seven headings that contribute to the overall
understanding of scientific methodology. In a scientific investigation these would be applied
in the following sequence.
1 Planning the experiment
2 Setting up and manipulating apparatus
3 Making measurements and observations
4 Recording and presenting observations and data
5 Analysing data and drawing conclusions
6 Evaluating procedures
7 Evaluating conclusions
It is easy to see how these seven skills are related to the four areas in the syllabus.
The emphasis of the AS part of the course is on skills 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. In other words,
students have to master the basic skills of manipulating apparatus, making measurements,
displaying their data in tables and on graphs, and drawing conclusions. They also have to
learn to critically evaluate the experimental procedures by identifying limitations and sources
of error and by suggesting improvements.
The A2 syllabus concentrates on skills 1, 5 and 7 – the higher-level skills of planning, data
analysis and evaluation. All of the skills developed in the AS part of the course are assumed
to have been mastered and skill 5 is extended and deepened. The A2 skills can only be
developed by allowing students to take a greater degree of control over the procedures they
use in practical classes.

Summary of each of the seven skills

Full details of the requirements for each of these skills may be found in the syllabus. What
follows below is a brief summary of the skills involved.
1 Planning
• Defining the problem
Students should be able to use information provided about the aims of the
investigation, or experiment, to identify the key variables.
• Methods of data collection
The proposed experimental procedure should be workable. It should, if the
apparatus were to be assembled appropriately, allow data to be collected without
undue difficulty. There should be a description, including clear labelled diagrams, of
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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

how the experiment should be performed and how the key variables are to be
controlled. Equipment, of a level of precision appropriate for the measurements to
be made, should be specified.
• Method of analysis
Students should be able to describe the main steps by which their results would be
analysed in order to draw valid conclusions. This may well include the proposal of
graphical methods to analyse data.
• Safety considerations
Students should be able to carry out a simple risk assessment of their plan,
identifying areas of risk and suggesting suitable safety precautions to be taken.
2 Setting up and manipulating apparatus
Students must be able to follow instructions, whether given verbally, in writing or
diagrammatically, and so be able to set up and use the apparatus for experiments
correctly. They will need to be able to work with a variety of different pieces of apparatus
and to work from circuit diagrams.
3 Making measurements and observations
Whilst successfully manipulating the experimental apparatus, students need to be able to
make measurements with accuracy and/or to make observations with clarity and
discrimination. They may need to be able to use specific measuring instruments and
techniques, such as Vernier scales, cathode-ray oscilloscopes, or Hall probes. They need
to be able to manage their time while they make measurements, and to be able to make
decisions about when it is appropriate to repeat measurements. They need to organise
their work so that they have the largest possible range of readings and so that the
readings are appropriately distributed within that range. They should be able to identify
and deal with results which appear anomalous.
4 Recording and presenting observations and data
Observations, data and reasoning need to be presented in ways that are easy to follow
and that accord with conventional good practice.
• Tables of results
The layout and contents of a results table, whether it is for recording numerical data
or observations, should be decided before the experiment is performed. ‘Making it
up as you go along’ often results in tables that are difficult to follow and don’t make
the best use of space. Space should be allocated within the table for any
manipulation of the data that will be required. The heading of each column must
include both the quantity being measured and the units in which the measurement is
made. Readings made directly from measuring instruments should be given to the
number of decimal places that is appropriate for the measuring instrument used (for
example, readings from a metre rule should be given to the nearest mm). Quantities
calculated from raw data should be shown to the correct number of significant
figures.
• Graphs
Students should label the axes of their graphs clearly with the quantity, unit and
scale all clearly shown in accordance with conventional good practice. Scales
should be chosen so that the graph grid is easy to use and so that the plotted points
occupy the majority of the space available. All of the points in the table of results
should be plotted accurately. Students should be able to draw curves, tangents to
curves or lines of best fit.

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

• Display of calculations and reasoning

Where calculations are done as part of the analysis, all steps of the calculations
must be displayed so that thought processes involved in reaching the conclusion are
clear to a reader. Similarly, where conclusions are drawn from observational data,
the key steps in reaching the conclusions should be reported and should be clear,
sequential and easy to follow.
5 Analysing data and drawing conclusions
Students should be able to calculate the gradient and intercepts of a line, including finding
the intercepts when a false origin has been used on the graph. They should be able to use
these to find the equation of the line of best fit through their points. They should be able to
relate an equation predicted by theory to the equation of their line of best fit or to their
data, and hence to find the values of constants or to draw conclusions about the veracity
of the theoretical prediction. They should be able to use the idea of proportionality in their
reasoning. They should be able to make predictions or hypotheses based on their data.
In the AS part of the course, students would normally be told what quantities to calculate,
what graph to plot and would be led through the analysis. In the A2 part of the course,
students would normally be expected to be able to plan the analysis for themselves. This
would normally include deciding what quantities to plot in order to obtain a straight-line
graph, deciding how to calculate these quantities from their raw data, and deciding how to
reach a conclusion from their graph.
6 Evaluating procedures
Students should be able to identify the limitations and weaknesses of experimental
procedures. To be able to do this effectively, they must have a clear idea of the purpose of
the experiment, and they must have carried out the procedure for themselves. They
should be able to make reasonable estimates of the uncertainties in the quantities they
have measured directly, and to compare these so that they can identify the largest
sources of error. They should be able to suggest improvements to the experimental
procedure which would improve the accuracy or reliability of the experiment.
7 Evaluating conclusions
This skill is primarily concerned with the treatment of errors. Where the outcome of an
experiment is the value of a constant, the treatment of errors should lead to an estimate of
the uncertainty in the student’s value. Where the experiment is a test of a hypothesis, the
treatment of errors should allow the student to discuss the validity of their conclusion in
terms of the precision of the experimental procedures.
As part of the treatment of errors, students should be able to make estimates of the
uncertainties in their measurements, calculate the uncertainties in derived quantities,
display error estimates in tables of results, plot error bars on their graphs, and estimate
the uncertainties in their calculations of gradients and intercepts.

A sequence for introducing the skills

The above list shows the seven skills in the order in which they would be used in an
extended investigation. It is not suggested that these skills should be taught in this order
(although students will find it helpful to understand how the skills fit together in an
investigation).
Students who are new to practical work will initially lack the basic manipulative skills, and the
confidence to use them. It would seem sensible, therefore, to start practical training with
skills 2 and 3, initially with very simple tasks and paying attention to the establishment of safe
working practices. These short initial exercises should focus on training students in the
setting up of common items of apparatus (such as power supplies and stands, bosses and

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

clamps) and in the use of simple measurement techniques (such as the use of rules,
stopwatches and electrical meters).
Once a measure of confidence in their manual dexterity has been established, AS students
can move on to exercises that require skills 4 and 5 to be included. The exercises should be
simple at first and grow in complexity. Extensive experience in carrying out practical
procedures allows students to gain awareness of appropriate quantities and to become more
organised in the management of time and the recording of data as it is collected.
It is likely that skill 6, Evaluating Procedures, will be the most difficult to learn at AS level.
Critical self-analysis does not come easily to many people. ‘My experiment worked well’ is a
common – and inadequate – student evaluation of an experiment. If students are to master
this skill, they need to begin by developing an appreciation of the reliability and accuracy
inherent in the equipment and procedures they are using. Exercises with less reliable
outcomes can be used to provide more scope for the evaluation of procedural, technical or
apparatus weaknesses.
In the AS year, most practical tasks will include instructions on what apparatus to use, how to
set it up, what data to collect, and what graphs to plot. The skills under development in the
AS year are concerned with being able to carry out these tasks effectively, and to evaluate
what they have been asked to do. In the A2 year, students should begin to take more control
over decision-making. This will include some exercises to develop skill 5: such exercises
might provide instructions on what apparatus to use and what data to collect, but leave
students to decide on how to conduct the analysis of their data, including decisions about
what graph to plot. Practical work at this stage will also include some exercises to develop
some aspects of skill 1, for example by telling students what data they need to collect but
requiring them to decide how to collect it with the apparatus provided.
The evaluation of conclusions, skill 7, is essentially about the propagation of errors. This
requires a high degree of familiarity not only with the basic ideas of uncertainty in
measurements but also with the analysis of experimental data, and so is an A2 skill. This skill
should be introduced early in the A2 year and students should then regularly be required to
practice their skill with the treatment of errors.
Planning is arguably the most demanding of the seven skills. For it to be effective, students
need to be very well grounded in skills 2-6, so that they can anticipate the different stages
involved in the task, and can provide the level of detail required. It is for this reason that
planning skills are not assessed at AS level but form part of the A2 assessment. Candidates
cannot be taught to plan experiments effectively unless, on a number of occasions, they are
required:
• to plan an experiment;
• to perform the experiment according to their plan;
• to evaluate what they have done.

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

Ways of doing practical work

Physics teachers should expect to use practical experiences as a way to enhancing learning.
Practical activities should form the basis on which to build knowledge and understanding.
They should be integrated with the related theory, offering opportunities for concrete, hands-
on, learning rather than as stand-alone experiences. In planning a scheme of work it is
important to consider a mosaic of approaches that include those that allow students to
participate in their own learning.
• Some practical activities should follow the well established structure that includes a
detailed protocol to follow. Such well-structured learning opportunities have a vital
role to play in introducing new techniques.
• Other practical activities should offer the students the opportunity to devise their own
plan and to apply their plan to solving a problem. The excitement generated by such
autonomy provides a stimulus to engage a student’s interest and challenge their
thinking.
Practical activities may be used as a tool to introduce new concepts – for example by
investigating the properties of new circuit components or of pieces of polaroid, followed up by
theoretical consideration of the reasons for the results obtained. On other occasions,
practical work can be used to support and enhance the required knowledge and
understanding – for example in building upon a theoretical consideration of diffraction with a
series of practicals involving light, water waves and microwaves. In all cases, learning will be
enhanced most effectively by practical work that encourages students to be involved, to
think, and to apply and use their knowledge, understanding and skills.
There are many strategies by which practical work can be integrated into a scheme of work.
Teachers should use a variety of methods. Some of the ways of delivering practical work
enable the teacher to interact on a one-to-one basis with individual students, which allows a
teacher to offer support at a more personal level and develop a greater awareness of an
individual student’s needs.
The choice of the specific strategy to use will depend on such issues as class size,
laboratory availability, the availability of apparatus, the level of competence of the students,
availability and expertise of technical support, the time available, the intended learning
outcomes for the activity, and safety considerations. The following are some possible
strategies for delivery of practical work.
• Teacher demonstrations
Teacher demonstrations require less time than full class practicals, but give little
opportunity for students to develop manipulative skills or gain familiarity with equipment.
Careful planning can give opportunity for limited student participation. Teacher
demonstrations are a valuable way of showing an unfamiliar procedure at the start of a
practical session, during which students go on to use the method themselves.
Considerations when deciding whether to do a teacher demonstration might include:
i Safety – some exercises carry too high a risk factor to be performed in groups.
ii Apparatus – complicated procedures or those using limited resources
iii Time – demonstrations usually take less time
iv Outcome – some results are difficult to achieve and may be beyond the skill level of
most of the students. A failed experiment may be seen as a waste of time, although
it may allow students to learn from their mistakes.
v Students’ attention – a danger is that the attention of some students will drift.
vi Manipulative experience – the teacher gets experience, the students’ don’t.
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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

There are many good reasons for the teacher performing a demonstration but do be
aware that most students have a strong preference for hands-on experimentation. So,
where possible, do let them do it!
• Group work
Whole class practical sessions. These have an advantage in terms of management as
all the students are doing the same thing. Students may be working individually, in pairs or
in small groups. Integrating this type of practical is straightforward as lessons beforehand
can be used to introduce the context and following lessons can be used to draw any
conclusions and to develop evaluation. Where specialised equipment or expensive
materials are in short supply this approach may not be feasible.
Small group work. This can provide a means of managing investigations that test a
range of variables and collect a lot of measurements. Although the same procedure may
be performed, each small group of students collects only one or a few sets of data which
are then pooled. The individual student has the opportunity to develop their subject
specific skills. Part of the role of the teacher is to monitor and maintain safety and also to
enable and persuade reluctant learners to take part. Group work aids personal
development as students must interact and work co-operatively.
Considerations when deciding whether to do group work might include:
i Learning – successful hands-on work will reinforce understanding; also, students
will learn from each other.
ii Confidence – this will grow with experience
iii Awareness/insight – should grow with experience
iv Team building – a most desirable outcome.
v Setting out – all students doing the same thing is easier for the technicians
vi Confusion – incomplete, ambiguous or confusing instruction by the teacher will
waste time while the instructions are clarified but may also compromise safety and
restrict learning.
vii Opting out – some students will leave it for others to do and so learn very little.
viii Safety – constant vigilance is essential.
ix DIY – the urge to adapt their experiments, to ‘see what would happen if’, must be
strictly dealt with.
x Discipline – practical time must not be allowed to become ‘play time’.
Working in groups, whether as part of a whole-class situation or where groups are working
as parts of a whole, is probably the preferred option for many students. At A level, it is
highly desirable to include opportunities for students to work on their own, developing their
own skills and independence. In Papers 31 and 32, a student’s practical skills will be
assessed on an individual basis, so an individual’s experience, competence and
confidence are of considerable importance.
• Circus of experiments
A circus comprises of a number of different exercises that run alongside each other.
Individual or groups of students work on the different exercises and, as each exercise is
completed, move on to the next one. These are a means by which limited resources can
be used effectively.
There are two basic approaches. Firstly, during a lesson a number of short activities may
be targeted at a specific skill. Alternatively, over a series of lessons, a number of longer
practical activities are used, addressing a variety of skills. The circus arrangement may be
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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

more difficult to manage as the students are not all doing the same activity. This puts
more pressure on the teacher as they have to cope with advising and answering
questions from a variety of investigations. With circuses spread over a number of
sessions, careful planning is needed to enable the teacher to engage each group of
students and to maintain a safe environment. In these situations it is useful to have a few
of the circus activities that involve no hands-on practical work, using data response based
simulations or other activities. In this way the teacher can interact with groups that need a
verbal introduction or short demonstration and can monitor their activities more effectively.
Considerations when deciding whether to do a circus of experiments might include:
i Apparatus – if the amount of apparatus used in an exercise is limited, students are
able to use it in rota.
ii Awareness – students by observing their peers will become more aware of the
pitfalls of the exercise and so will learn from the experience of others.
iii Safety – different exercises may well carry different safety risks, all of which would
need to be covered.
iv Setting out –students doing different exercises will make it more difficult for the
technicians.
v Opting out – some students may be tempted to ‘borrow’ the results of earlier
groups.
• Within theory lessons
This option should be considered whenever it is viable. It is likely that the practical work
would be by demonstration, as this would take less time. Given the power of visual
images, the inclusion of a short practical to illustrate a theoretical point will reinforce that
point and so aid the learning process. It is critical, however, that the practical works
correctly, otherwise the flow of the lesson is disrupted and confidence in the theory may
be undermined. The exercise should therefore be practiced beforehand.
• Project work
Projects are a means by which a student’s interest in a particular topic, which is not
always directly on the syllabus, can be used to develop investigative skills. This sort of
investigative work can be individual, or a group activity. Once the project is underway,
much of the work can be student-based, although if it is practical it needs to be
undertaken under the supervision of the teacher for safety reasons. Care is needed in
selecting the topics and setting a time scale, so that the relevance is maintained to the
syllabus context.
• Extra-curricular clubs
The role that these can play is in stimulating scientific enquiry methods. There are a
number of ways of using clubs. One way is to hold the club session during the teaching
day so that all students can attend. In effect this becomes additional lesson time in which
students can practice investigative skills, including laboratory work. Such laboratory work
involves materials that have a cost, which must be planned for beforehand. If however the
club is held outside the teaching day it may be voluntary. Syllabus-specific activities
should be limited and the most made of the opportunities for exciting work unrelated to
syllabuses. Students who do attend the club could be used as a teacher resource by
bringing back their findings to a classroom session.

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

Keeping records
Students often find it a problem to integrate the practical work and the theory. This is
particularly true when a circus of experiments or a long-term investigation or project is
undertaken. Some potential issues include:
• Some students use odd scraps of paper in the laboratory, which are lost or become
illegible as water is spilled on them. One important criterion is that students are
trained to immediately and accurately record results.
• Practical procedures may be provided on loose sheets of paper which are
subsequently lost, or students write down the results from a teacher demonstration.
In either situation, students end up with results but no procedure or context.
• When results take a period of time to collect, analysis becomes isolated from the
context of the investigation and may not be completed.
The key to minimising these issues is to train students into good working practices. This is
particularly important in colleges where students join at the start of their A levels from a
variety of feeder schools. It is also vital for students with specific learning difficulties that
affect their ability to organise their work such as dyslexia and Asperger’s syndrome.
Students may be encouraged to integrate the practical in the same file as the theory.
Alternatively, students may be encouraged to keep an entirely separate practical book or file.
Loose leaf files make it easy to add to the file, but may make it easier to mix up or lose items.
Exercise books can be used but students should be encouraged to glue worksheets and their
laboratory records into the book so that they are not lost. Depending on how they learn,
individuals may vary in their preferred method. Whichever option is chosen, students need to
be encouraged to relate their investigations to the appropriate theory and to regard it as
something that needs to be thoroughly assimilated.
• Integrating the materials generated by practical work with the notes and other items
from the learning of theory can be achieved by interspersing the records of
investigations with the relevant section of theory. This may still require cross-
referencing where several learning outcomes and assessment objectives are
targeted by work.
• Keeping a separate practical book enables records of all the practical investigations
to be kept in one place. Students need training to manage practical files effectively,
particularly in keeping the contexts and cross referencing to the theory. If care is not
taken to develop and keep up these skills, students may perceive practical work as
something entirely different from theory.
• An intermediate between these two extremes is having a separate section for
practical investigations in each student’s file with each syllabus section and cross
referenced to the relevant theory.

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How is a practical activity organised?

Preparing for practical work needs thought and organisation. The practical work may be an
activity that forms part of a lesson, it may comprise an entire lesson, or it may be an
investigation designed to last for several lessons. In every case, thorough preparation is a
key prerequisite to success.
Practical and investigative work should be integrated into the programme of study. The
scheme of work should identify appropriate practical investigative experiences for use at the
most suitable time. In designing the scheme of work,
• the resource implications should be considered in terms of equipment and materials
in stock,
• the time taken from order to delivery and the cost of materials to be obtained from
suppliers should be considered
• careful scheduling may be needed in Centres with a large number of students. It
may be possible to permit several groups to do the work simultaneously or in quick
succession, or it may be essential to re-order the scheme of work for different
groups so that scarce resources can be used effectively.
• note must be taken of national or local health and safety regulations relating to laser
light, high voltages, chemicals etc. There may also be regulations controlling the
use of radioactive sources.
Once the scheme of work has been established, the next stage is to consider each practical
activity or investigation. In an ideal course, each of the following stages would be gone
through in developing each practical exercise in a course. This is not always realistically
possible the first time through a course, and in such circumstances it is better to get some
practical work done with students than to hold out for perfection before attempting anything.
Obviously, all practical work should be subject to careful and rigorous risk assessment, no
matter how provisional the rest of the supporting thinking and documentation may be.
• Decide on the aims of the work – the broad educational goals, in terms of the
practical skills involved (e.g. evaluating procedures) and the key topic areas (e.g.
deformation of solids)
• Consider the practical skills being developed. Reference should be made to the
syllabus, which in the Practical Assessment section includes learning outcomes
relating to practical skills. For instance, if the practical work intended is to be a
planning exercise, which of the specific skills identified in the learning outcomes will
be developed?
• With reference to the topics included, decide on the intended learning outcomes of
the practical activity or investigation, again referring to the syllabus. For instance,
which of the “waves” learning outcomes will be achieved? In some cases during the
course, the material on which the practical is to be based may be unfamiliar, in
which case there may be no topic-related intended learning outcomes. Thus, A2
contexts may be used for AS practicals, and topic areas not on the syllabus at all
may be used for AS or A2 practicals.
• In addition, it is useful to assess any other context of the practical work investigation.
For instance, is it intended as part of the introduction of a concept, or to support a
theory, or to demonstrate a process?
• Produce a provisional lesson plan, allocating approximate times to introduction,
student activities and summarising.

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• Produce and trial a student worksheet. Published procedures or those produced by

other teachers can be used. Alternatively produce your own. As a rule schedules
produced by others need modifying to suit individual groups of students or the
equipment available. It is helpful to ask students or another teacher to read work
sheets before they are finalised as they can identify instructions that are ambiguous
or that use inaccessible terminology.
• Refine the lesson plan in relation to the number of students for which the
investigation is intended (whole class or a small group), the available equipment
(does some have to be shared?) and materials. There are examples of lesson plans
and student work sheets in Appendix 2.
• Carry out a detailed and careful risk assessment before any preparatory practical
work is done, and certainly well before students do any of the practical work. You
should consider
o the likelihood that any foreseeable accident might occur.
o the potential severity of the consequences of any such accident.
o the means that can be taken to reduce the severity of the effect of any accident.
• Make an equipment and materials list. This should include
o apparatus and materials (including quantities) per student or per group.
o shared equipment per laboratory (e.g. sinks, top-pan balances).
o the location of storage areas for equipment and materials.
• Set up and maintain a filing system where master copies of the work sheets, lesson
plans and equipment lists can be stored. It is helpful to have these organised, or at
least indexed, in both their syllabus context and skills developed.
• Once an investigation has been used by a group of students it should be evaluated
in relation to intended outcomes and the lesson plan. It is important to obtain
feedback from the students about their perception of the work. For example,
o was the time allocation appropriate?
o were the outcomes as expected?
o did the students enjoy the work?
o did the students understand the instructions?
o was the point of the work clear to the students?
If necessary the work sheet and lesson plan should be revised.

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Teaching AS skills
Teaching students to set up and manipulate apparatus
Some students will begin their AS course with very little experience of hands-on practical
work, and consequently with limited knowledge of apparatus and limited skill in manipulating
it. In this situation it is often sensible to begin a practical course with a circus of very short
exercises designed solely to enable students to gain familiarity with common pieces of
apparatus.
As an example, such a circus of short exercises might include practice in the use of retort
stands, bosses and clamps. Clamping a half-metre rule so that it is exactly horizontal and a
specified height above the bench is quite fiddly for inexperienced students and will teach
them familiarity not only with the use of a stand, boss and clamp but also with the use of a
set square and 30 cm rule to check that the rule is exactly horizontal. Setting up a simple
pendulum of a specified length with the string clamped between two blocks of wood is
similarly quite difficult and allows students an opportunity to think about why pendulums are
set up in this way rather than, for example, by tying the string to the clamp.
Many students will need to be taught how to relate a circuit diagram, conventionally printed
with straight lines and right angles, to the rather less tidy appearance of a real circuit. This
can begin to be taught by asking students to draw a circuit diagram of a given series circuit,
by tracing the wires from the positive to the negative terminal of the power supply. Students
can then move on to more complex circuits with parallel branches. After this, students can be
asked to use the same approach (of tracing the wires from the positive to the negative
terminal of the power supply) to set up real circuits from circuit diagrams. In the initial stages
it may be helpful to label circuit components and to provide a key to circuit symbols: students
will learn to recognise both the components and the symbols as the course progresses, and
after a while the labels can be dispensed with. The ability to connect circuits correctly from
circuit diagrams will be needed (and hence reinforced) regularly during the course,
particularly during the teaching of the whole of Section V of the syllabus, and the more often
it is practised the better.
It is important that the students become confident with all the common apparatus that they
may come across. During the course of the year they should all have experience of using as
much of the common apparatus as listed in the syllabus and the CIE booklet ‘Planning For
Practical Science in Secondary Schools’ (June 2002). They need to be able to recognise
different items of apparatus as well as learning to use them. In some cases it may be worth
the students being encouraged to keep a skills and equipment log where they could record
the apparatus and techniques that they have gained over the year.
Students’ manipulative skills will develop over the course of the year. Some of this learning
will take place in short exercises designed to introduce students to particular pieces of
apparatus. Some of it (and much of the reinforcement) will take place while students are
performing more involved experiments. The course should be designed to include some
experiments which require some delicate manipulation and which may take some time to get
to work successfully, such as the experiment to find the mass of a metre rule.
During the early part of the course some students will lack confidence and will need to be
encouraged and supported. As the course continues and their experience grows, these
students will become more confident and self reliant in practical situations.

Teaching students to make measurements and observations

Measurements are an integral part of Physics practical work. All of the practicals that are
covered in the appendices to this booklet, and the questions in practical examination papers,
will require multiple measurements to be made. In most situations, the measurements have
to be made successfully before the student can move on to the next stage of the experiment.

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At the beginning of the course, some students may have had little previous exposure to
practical work and may lack confidence in making measurements and observations. Such
students may be helped by a series of very short exercises designed simply to provide
familiarity with the most common measuring devices. These exercises could form part of the
same circus used to introduce them to other items of apparatus or to manipulative skills.
Familiarity with the use of measuring instruments can be gained both by short, highly-
focussed exercises and by practice during longer, full-lesson practicals. Both approaches
should be used. Every opportunity should be taken to give students practice in making
measurements, even if this is part of a demonstration.
Students should be taught to look for situations in which the precision of measurements can
be improved by measuring a multiple of the quantity. For example, the period of an oscillation
can be more accurately measured by timing ten or twenty periods and then dividing by the
number of periods. A similar principle can be applied to a wide variety of other
measurements, for example measuring the thickness of twenty sheets of paper instead of
just one, or the mass of fifty coins instead of just one. Students need to be encouraged to
think about why this reduces the uncertainty in the measurement. They need to be given
exercises in recognising such situations as well as being given practical work that requires
them to use the technique.
The use of Vernier scales and micrometer screw gauges is something that particularly
benefits from a dedicated activity to familiarise the students using them for the first time. As
they will be used many times during subsequent practical sessions, this is time very well
spent. There are also a number of internet-based activities that can be used to familiarise
students with reading these scales.
The most common measuring instruments used in the AS level course will include millimetre
scales on rules of various lengths, micrometer screw gauges, Vernier callipers, measuring
cylinders, protractors, stopwatches, top-pan balances, newton-meters, thermometers,
ammeters, voltmeters and cathode-ray oscilloscopes. Some students will also have access
to light gates and electronic timing equipment.
It may be that the electrical meters generally used are all either digital or analogue, but
students need to have some experience of reading from both types of scale. Some analogue
meters have more than one scale printed on their faces, and students should be taught to
recognise which scale to use.
Digital multimeters are both more versatile and considerably cheaper than the single-range
meters available from specialised school laboratory equipment suppliers. Consequently
many schools now only use digital multimeters. Students need to be taught how to select the
appropriate range and the appropriate sockets on a digital multimeter, and to be given
regular practice in their use.
Students are expected to be familiar with the precision of the measuring instrument used.
This will need to be taught directly when each new measuring instrument is used for the first
time. Each time the measuring instrument is used again, students should be encouraged to
remember or identify the level of precision of the instrument. They should eventually know
the levels of precision for most of the common measuring instruments and have the skills to
be able to make a reasonable judgement when they forget or when they encounter a less
familiar measuring instrument.
When considering the precision of a measuring instrument, students need to know when to
interpolate between scale marks and when this is not appropriate. There are differing schools
of thought on this question. At A/AS level, students are not expected to interpolate except
when the smallest scale divisions are further apart than about 1 mm (which is not very
common).

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Students are expected to record their measurements to a degree of precision that is

appropriate for the experiment. Sometimes this will be the same as the precision of the
measuring instrument, and sometimes there will be reasons why the data is less precise than
the measuring instrument used. (Examples include accurate stopwatches, where the reaction
time of the operator is significant; or measurements of the amplitude of an oscillation, where
the movement may be too rapid to be measured to the nearest millimetre). Students need to
be trained to think about the appropriate degree of precision for their measurements, and this
will not always be obvious to them. It will help them to learn if they are required to record
their thought processes: if this is a consistent requirement it will eventually become second
nature.
Where readings are repeated, the range of values obtained provides useful information about
the uncertainty in the measurement. The average of the repeated readings should be
calculated and used as the value of the measurement in subsequent stages of the
experiment. The range in the value of the readings should be treated as twice the error in the
measurement.
Students are also expected to know when to repeat readings and when not to. As with many
other practical skills, this can be discussed initially and then reinforced by constant practice.
It is not normally necessary to repeat all measurements, but it is usually good practice to
repeat those that appear to be the largest sources of percentage error, or those where repeat
readings can provide information about the uncertainty.
The terms precision, accuracy, error and uncertainty can cause much confusion in students’
minds, and their meanings should be addressed directly early on in the course. Error and
uncertainty are interchangeable terms in A/AS level, but the distinction between precision
and accuracy is one that students are expected to understand.

Teaching students to record and present observations and data

Most of the observations and measurements that students make will be presented in tables
of results and graphs. There are conventions for both tables and graphs that students have
to learn and follow. They will find it easier to learn if the reasons behind the conventions are
explained. Once it has been explained, constant reinforcement will make the conventions
second nature.
When plotting tables of results, students need to:
• think ahead so that they have space for all the columns;
• show the quantity and unit in the column headings;
• be consistent in the degree of precision for each column of raw data;
• use the correct number of significant figures in calculated quantities.
Thinking ahead is not something that all students do naturally. To help them, they should be
encouraged to draw out the framework of the table of results, with all the column headings in
place, before they start to make the measurements and insert in the values.
For most experiments, two quantities are measured directly, and these will require a column
each. Often there will be a need to repeat readings for one of these quantities: this will add to
the number of columns. In addition, calculated quantities will often be needed for plotting on
the graph, in which case each calculated quantity will require a column. A typical blank table
of results is shown below. In this table, l and t are measured directly; readings of t have been
repeated (to give t1, t2 and the average value tAV); and the graph is one of l against T2 (where
t = 10T) so a column has been provided for the calculated quantity T2.

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l/cm t1/s t2/s tAV/s T2/s2

Students should be discouraged from recording their data initially on a rough piece of paper
and transferring it later onto a ‘neat’ copy of the table of results, because this introduces
copying errors, wastes time, and runs the risk that the rough piece of paper will be lost.
It is good practice to carry out just one “dry run” of collecting a set of readings before actually
beginning work. The advantage of this is that it will give students a feel for the problems and
will allow them to make an informed decision about which readings, if any, should be
repeated.
The column headings should show the quantity and the unit, as in the example above. These
should normally be separated by a solidus (slash). No units should be shown beside the
values in the body of the table.
Within each column of raw data, the degree of precision should be consistent. For example,
if l/cm in the table above could be measured to the nearest 1 mm, then all the values in the
column should be given to the nearest millimetre. This may mean that the number of
significant figure is not consistent: the values might, for example, range from 68.4 cm to 8.7
cm.
In calculated quantities, the number of significant figures should be appropriate for each
value, given the number of significant figures in the raw data from which they are calculated.
Since the number of significant figures may vary within a column of raw data, it follows that it
may also vary within a column of calculated data.
Most physics practical work requires that data is displayed on a graph, and the graph is
usually (although not always) a straight line graph. Students need to know how to plot graphs
correctly. However, if they are to be successful at evaluation and planning, they also need to
have a clear understanding of why graphs are plotted. This may be taught by providing
some data and facilitating a discussion among the students.
For example, this could be taught using the example of an experiment to determine the
spring constant k of a spring from the equation F = kx, where F is the force and x is the
extension.
Start with a single reading of F and a single reading of x, and calculate k. Ask whether that is
enough data, and establish that more data will minimise the effects of any aberrant readings.
Then provide several sets of readings, calculate k for each set separately, and find the mean
value of k. Discuss whether this is a good way to find k. Establish that the aberrant reading, if
there is one, has still contributed to the answer. Think about the limit of proportionality and
how you would know whether or not it has been exceeded.
Plot a graph of F (y-axis) against x (x-axis). Find the gradient and show that it should be
equal to k. Point out how easy it is to spot (and discount) any data that is aberrant or beyond
the elastic limit. Discuss how the data would have looked on the graph (and how the gradient
would have been affected) if there had been a systematic error (for example, if the mass
hanger’s mass had been 120 g when it should have been 100 g).

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Conclude that plotting a graph and taking the gradient is a way of:
• averaging the data so that the effects of random errors are minimised;
• identifying aberrant points (which should be investigated further);
• eliminating some systematic errors;
• checking that the shape of the graph is as it should be.
The data for this lesson could be collected from real apparatus in a demonstration, with the
whole class processing and discussing the data. If the mass of the mass hanger is adjusted
to produce a systematic error in the data, so much the better. There is no need to introduce
aberrant readings or to exceed the elastic limit of the spring: it is enough that these points
can be checked on the graph.
There are a number of conventions to be followed in the plotting of graphs, and students
need to learn these. These include:
• labelling of axes (these should be clearly labelled in the same way as the column
headings in the table of results, with the quantity and the unit, and the values on the
scale should be marked at frequent intervals);
• choosing scales that are easy to read (so awkward ratios such as 3, 5, 6, 7 or 9
squares per unit should be avoided);
• choosing scales that spread out the data points (i.e. so that the data is spread across
at least half of the width of the graph paper and across at least half of the height. This
may mean that a false origin has to be used, i.e. the point (0,0) is not shown on the
page);
• plotting all of the data accurately;
• drawing a best-fit straight line through the points (when the points lie in a straight line)
(there should be the same number of points above and below the line, and in each
half of the line there should be the same number of points above it and below it);
• being neat (small crosses drawn with a sharp pencil for the data points; a thin best-fit
line drawn with a sharp pencil and a clear plastic ruler: neat work allows the accuracy
of the work to be checked);
• reviewing the data (the graph allows the data to be reviewed to see whether any of
the points are anomalous and whether the expected trend is observed. Anomalous
readings should always be checked, to see if there is an error in the plotting or in the
readings).
The skills of presenting data in tables and on graphs should be seen as a developing set and
something that students will improve with as they gain confidence and experience during the
course. This will mean trying to choose practicals and activities that have a relatively
contained, uncomplicated set of results in the early stages of the course and then working up
to more complicated sets. Many students find that having a brief checklist helps them while
they are still struggling to learn how to draw graphs, and the checklist also serves as a useful
revision tool later on.

Teaching students to analyse data and draw conclusions

The analysis of data in AS level practical work can take a variety of forms, including:
• estimating uncertainties in measured quantities and converting between actual and
percentage uncertainties;
• finding the peak value of a curve or reading specific values from a graph;

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• finding the gradient and y-intercept of a graph;

• relating a straight line graph to a formula in the form y = mx + c to enable the values
of constants to be determined;
• relating a graph or a set of data to a formula to conclude whether the data supports or
contradicts the formula;
• using data to suggest whether or not two quantities are proportional;
• using data to formulate a hypothesis.
Students will need to be taught specifically and directly how to find the gradient and y-
intercept of a graph. Whenever they calculate gradients, students should be encouraged to
draw a triangle on their graph from which they can read values of ∆y and ∆x (and which you
can use when checking through their work). They should be asked to think about the
precision with which they can read ∆y and ∆x if the triangle is very small and very large, and
should be led to the conclusion that the triangle should be as large as possible. It is the usual
practice in examinations to require that the triangle spans at least half of the length of the line
drawn, and this point can be emphasised to students. The most common mistakes that
students make when calculating gradients are:
• using a small triangle;
• drawing the triangle between two data points instead of two points on the line of best
fit;
• calculating ∆x / ∆y instead of ∆y / ∆x.
Students need to be told what the term “y-intercept” means. Once they know this, they do not
usually have great difficulty in reading the y-intercept directly from a graph. However, they do
find it more difficult to determine the y-intercept where a false origin has been used or where
the line of best fit goes through the top or bottom of the page before it reaches the y-axis.
They need to be shown how to substitute the co-ordinates of one point (x, y) on their line,
plus their value of the gradient m, into the equation y = mx + c in order to find the value of the
y-intercept c. It is a common mistake to use one of the data points instead of the co-ordinates
of a point on the line in this substitution, and students should be shown that this gives an
incorrect answer.
Technically, the gradient and y-intercept on a graph are numbers and have no unit. Students
should not, therefore, be asked to give the units. However, the gradient and y-intercept may
be numerically equal to constants which do have units. Students need to know that, in such
cases, the units should be derived from the labelling of the axes on the graph.
The techniques for finding the gradient and y-intercept need to be explained to students first
in a classroom setting, and then reinforced with a series of pen and paper exercises using
sets of data provided. After this, they should be reinforced by providing practical work that
includes the use of graphs.
Students often find it difficult to rearrange a given formula into the form y = mx + c, and to
relate this to the graph that they have plotted. For example, in a falling ball experiment, they
might be told that g = 2h/t2 and asked to find the value of g from a graph of h (y-axis) against
t2 (x-axis). They need to be shown that, with h on the y-axis and t2 on the x-axis, the formula
has to be rearranged into the form h = mt2 + c. From this, they should be able to reach the
equation h = ½gt2 and hence realise that the gradient is numerically equal to ½g and that the
y-intercept should be zero. After they have worked through an example like this in open class
discussion, they should then be given several similar examples to work on to reinforce the
skill. After this they should be equipped to use this skill when they encounter it in practical
work.

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The ability to manipulate formulae and to relate them to graphs is an important foundation
stone for some of the planning and data analysis skills that students will encounter in their A2
course. You may need to check that students continue to practice this skill, and to provide
some remedial exercises if necessary.
Students will need to be shown how to convert between percentage errors and actual errors,
and opportunities should be found periodically to put this into practice in practical work. This
can be done, for example, by asking them to consider which of their measurements has the
largest percentage error. Similar questions can be included in the worksheets for most
experiments. Identifying significant sources of error is an important skill both because it
informs students’ decisions about which readings should be repeated and because it is a
useful first step in the evaluation of the experimental procedures.

Teaching students to evaluate procedures

Students need to have a good understanding of experimental procedures before they can
begin to be confident in evaluation. This understanding should include both a familiarity with
a range of practical techniques and apparatus and a good grasp of the reasons why
experimental procedures are carried out in particular ways. For this reason, evaluation
procedures are best introduced in the second half of the AS year, after the other AS skills
have been taught and practised.
The evaluation of very precise well-designed experiments can be difficult for students. With
no significant sources of error and no major faults in the procedures used, students find it
difficult to know what to write. When teaching evaluation skills, it is kinder to provide
experiments which include significant sources of error, weaknesses in the method used to
analyse the data, and plenty of scope for improvement.
It is sometimes suggested that students can evaluate experimental procedures without
having carried them out. This is nearly always an unreasonable expectation. Some of the
evaluation usually involves particularly difficult measurements, such as a length that is not
easily accessible with a rule. Unless students have grappled with taking the measurement,
they will have great difficulty in visualising the problems. Students need to do an experiment
before they evaluate it.
Initially, students can be asked to estimate the actual error in the measurements they make
and to convert this into a percentage error. In this way they can be asked, as a matter of
routine, to identify the largest sources of error in the experiment. They should also be taught
the difference between random and systematic errors and encouraged to check for
systematic errors in their measurements.
From this starting point, students can begin to use checklists to help them to think about the
limitations in an experiment. The checklist could include the following questions.
• Apart from the variables being measured, was there any other factor that might have
affected the results?
• Which measurements were difficult to make?
• What were the largest sources of error?
• Were there any systematic errors?
• Was enough data collected?
• Was the range and distribution of the data points appropriate?
• Was a graph of the data plotted?
In each case, students should be asked not only to identify the limitations, but to suggest a
way to improve the experiment. The improvements could range from suggesting the control

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of variables to the use of more appropriate measuring instruments and to making

measurements in a different way.
The checklist should be first introduced after the whole class has done the same experiment,
even if this is a very short exercise. Responses to the checklist can be collected in a
brainstorming session and then discussed so that students begin to get a feel for the sorts of
suggestions that are appropriate to an evaluation. After this, students should be given regular
opportunities to practise and develop their skills.
The practical work conducted after this point should not consist entirely of poorly-designed
experiments which students can evaluate. Well-designed and precise experiments need to
be interspersed with evaluation exercises so that students are given constant reminders of
good experimental practice.
In their evaluations of the procedures followed in experiments that the students have carried
out for themselves, repeating readings should not be regarded as an appropriate response.
The reason is that, if it was appropriate to repeat readings, then this should have been done
when the experiment was carried out. In the context of a demonstration, however, it might be
necessary to accept this point!
As a rough rule of thumb, six data points is usually sufficient to provide a good straight line
graph, but more data would nearly always improve the reliability of an experiment. When
designing a practical for students to evaluate, it is a good idea to ask them to collect just two
or three sets of data, and to omit the plotting of a graph. This provides opportunities for
students to identify limitations and to suggest improvements. The checklist should help
students to spot these particular weaknesses.
Whenever a class experiment has been carried out, it can be of great value for the whole
class to discuss the limitations and sources of error. As well as being a useful tool to
encourage class discussion, it creates a very simplistic ‘peer review’ model from which
parallels can be drawn with professional scientific enquiry.

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Designing a practical course for the AS year

This booklet is designed as a guide to help and support teachers in the delivery of the
course. It does not provide a complete course on its own and does not offer full coverage of
every aspect of the syllabus in detail. Instead, it is intended to help equip teachers to plan
and deliver a full, coherent course. It is intended to complement the resources and
experience already existing in the Centre.
Appendix 1 of this booklet provides a list of suggested practical activities that could be used
to help deliver a Physics practical course at AS level. They are only suggestions: some of
them may not be suitable for your centre and so you may need to adapt them or select
alternatives.
The activities in Appendix 1 are listed in syllabus order, that is, in the order in which the
subject content (not the practical skills) are listed in the syllabus. The actual order in which
these practical activities are carried out will depend largely on the sequence in which the
theory is taught, so that theory and practical work support each other in the learning process.
When considering an order for the practical activities, you will also have to consider the
sequence in which you are introducing new practical skills and techniques. Some of the
activities will need careful adaptation to ensure that they only require the skills that have
already been introduced and that they include the practical skills that you want to reinforce at
that time.
For each practical activity, it is suggested that the following documents are produced:
• a student worksheet (to tell the student what to do);
• teaching notes (specifying the objectives of the activity);
• technical notes (specifying the apparatus, materials and facilities required).
As examples of how practical activities can be worked up in this way, Appendix 2 takes ten of
the practicals from Appendix 1 and provides all three documents for each. The intention of
Appendix 2 is that it should demonstrate to teachers how practical activities may be worked
up and equip them to do the same for the whole of their AS level practical course.

Planning the course

The skills and techniques required of students are clearly laid out in the syllabus. When
putting together a practical course, the syllabus should be used as a guide to ensure that the
skills and techniques are all covered on at least one occasion (and hopefully more often).
When planning and preparing a course of lessons for the year, it is important to try and make
sure that relevant practical activities are connected to the theory lessons and not just seen as
an add-on. Practical work has a much greater strength if it is seen to complement and
support the theoretical work covered in other lessons. Some practical skills may be
introduced in one lesson and then developed or used in another lesson, building into a
sequence. This helps to provide continuity for the students and to reinforce their learning.
By planning in advance it will be possible to select activities that run parallel with the content
from the syllabus being delivered as well as providing a variety of different types of lesson.
This will help to maintain students’ interest and motivation.
When a practical activity requires a new skill, technique or piece of equipment, time needs to
be set aside for this. This may mean that an extra activity needs to be included at the start of
the lesson to prepare the students in advance. Alternatively it may be more appropriate to
allow for extra time and support during that particular activity.

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Using past exam papers

Past papers are available from CIE and can form a useful part of final exam preparation.
They often touch on content from the syllabus but do not always deal with it as directly as the
examples in Appendix 2. They are therefore of limited use as practicals intended to
complement the teaching of theory. In addition, they usually require a high degree of
familiarity with the full range of practical skills. As such, if students are not totally confident
with their skills and knowledge they will be unlikely to able to gain the full benefit from them.
Past exam papers should be seen less as a teaching tool but more as a valuable resource to
be used towards the end of the course as part of a structured revision program. They have a
role to play in the reinforcement of the practical skills that have been covered and in the final
preparation for the examination.

Planning lessons and teaching the course

In the teaching notes section of each practical activity in Appendix 2, there are detailed notes
including clearly highlighted ‘key learning objectives’. It is important that these objectives are
stressed when the activity is being introduced and described to the students. Many students
can carry out practical activities without fully understanding what they are doing and why they
are doing it, and this inhibits their ability to learn from the experience. It is usually worth
explicitly stating the key learning objectives to the students so that they have a clear focus for
the lesson.
Although students will be involved in practical activity for most of the lesson, some lesson
time should be spent on ensuring that each activity is properly introduced. The way an
individual lesson is structured is very much up to the individual teacher but below is one
possible approach to teaching practical activities.
Introduction (10 mins)
A teacher-led oral presentation which includes:
• An explanation of the activity that is to be carried out.
• A recap or explanation of the theory that relates to the practical. In many cases this
will have been covered in more detail in a previous lesson.
• A description (and possibly a demonstration) of any equipment that is to be used or
is needed in the practical. It is easy to make assumptions about what the students
are confident with and this provides an opportunity to check before they start. If a
new piece of equipment is to be used then the skills needed to use it must be
directly taught. This may be done at this point but in some cases it is better to have
provided a dedicated session at an earlier time.
• Safety. This should be raised before every single practical regardless of the risk.
Students can be asked to make the risk assessment themselves and to make
suggestions as to appropriate precautions although each practical must have been
risk assessed by a teacher beforehand.
Preparation (5 – 10 mins)
Students should be encouraged to prepare before starting to take readings. As well as
setting up the apparatus, they should also be encouraged to make one ‘dry run’ of a set of
readings. They should consider the range of readings to be taken and whether repeat
readings are needed. They should prepare the outlines of their tables of results.

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Main activity (35 – 60 mins)

Each of the practical activities will take different amounts of time depending upon the
students involved and the nature of the task. During this time some groups may well need
support and help.
Plenary (5 – 10 mins):
A teacher-led session where the main threads of the practical are brought back together.
Some of the areas covered could include:
• A recap of the theory that underlies the activity and a reminder to cross-reference
the practical work and the theory notes.
• A discussion of the practical skills and any particular equipment or techniques that
were needed.
• A discussion of any limitations, errors or problems involved in the activity and ways
in which these could be dealt with.
• A reminder of the expectations of the written work that will follow (which should be
included in the student worksheets).

Planning for a circus

In many Centres, practical activities may be carried out as part of a circus. In this case it is
not possible for an introduction to the activities to be held as a teacher-led plenary session at
the start of each lesson, because there are too many activities taking place. However, the
introduction of each activity is important and should not be lost: it helps the students to
understand both what they are doing and why they are doing it. One possible solution to this
is to hold a ‘circus introduction session’.
For the first session of the circus, set up the laboratory so all the equipment for each of the
activities is visible. Take the whole class round the laboratory introducing each experiment,
using the introduction section above as a guide. Although this may take quite some time, this
is a worthwhile thing to do and will hopefully allow each subsequent practical session to run
more smoothly. It will give students a clearer idea of what they are required to do.
A possible alternative to this would be to run the first session without introducing the
experiments. Give the students a very quick run-through and then issue the student
worksheets. Let students know that, at the beginning of the next session, they will need to
describe the key points to the rest of the class. Begin the next session with each group
introducing to the rest of the class the activity they have done. If this approach is taken then
this can act as a good way to get the students to develop their communication skills.

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 Teaching AS Physics Practical Skills

Appendix 1: Possible AS practical activities

The table below lists a series of practical activities that can be delivered to both support the theory and to develop the students’ practical skills.
The activities are mapped against the learning outcomes in the theory sections in the syllabus and are listed in syllabus order.
Each practical activity should also be mapped against the practical skills required, partly to ensure that the skills and equipment are introduced
at the correct points and partly to ensure that all skills are covered during the course. Many of the practical activities could be conducted in
different ways to give emphasis to different skills, and therefore the mapping must be done when the details of the practical are worked out (i.e.
when the student worksheets, teaching notes and technical notes are produced).
Suggestions have been made whether something is suitable as a demonstration or practical. In almost all cases it is possible for students to
carry out experiments listed as demonstrations, although the experiments may need to be set up and tested beforehand.

Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Terminal velocity Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 3(b), 3(d), 3(j),
5(c)
Measuring speed and Using ticker timers or data-logging equipment, and Practical 3(b), 3(d), 3(e),
acceleration trolleys or a linear air track, the motion of objects 3(g)
moving at constant speed or with constant acceleration
can be analysed. The experiments should be set up so
that students can collect data that can be used to plot
motion graphs which they can analyse.

Acceleration down a slope Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 3(g)

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Measurement of g with falling A millisecond timer is connected to two switches, as the Practical or 3(g), 3(i)
object ball is dropped the timer starts. When it has fallen a demonstration
certain distance it triggers the second switch and stops
the timer. Using Newton’s laws g can be calculated.
Alternatively this experiment could be carried out with
data-logging equipment or ticker timers.
Force, mass and acceleration An object is accelerated with a known force. The Practical 4(a), 4(b), 4(f)
relationship between force and acceleration can then
be analysed graphically and the mass of the system
found.
This is often done by accelerating trolleys along a
bench with a known weight on the end of a pulley
hanging over the edge. The acceleration is recorded
(directly or indirectly) by data loggers or a ticker timer
for different accelerating forces.
Elastic bands can be used to apply the force but this
will only allow the identification of a linear relationship
between force and acceleration.

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Conservation of momentum An experiment to investigate the law of conservation of Practical 4(h), 4(d), 4(i),
momentum. 4(j)
This is commonly done with two mechanics trolleys or
two vehicles on a linear air track (although freely
running toy cars can be used). Both their velocities are
measured by ticker timer, data logger or other method
before and after any collision. Various collisions are
carried out and each time the momentum before and
after the collision can be calculated from the masses
and velocities and from this the law can be verified.
Investigations into elastic and inelastic collisions can
also be carried out.

Weight and upthrust A known mass is hung on the end of a newton meter, Practical or 5(b)
this is then lowered into a beaker of water (or other demonstration
fluid) and the changes in the reading on the newton
meter are recorded as the object is immersed.
The experiment can be extended by placing the whole
experiment on a top-pan balance and observing the
change in reading on that at the same time.

Triangle of forces board Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 5(d)

Finding the mass of a metre Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 5(i), 5(e)
rule using the principle of
moments

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Finding the densities of different Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 9(a)
materials
Structure of metals The crystalline nature of the structure of metals can be Demonstration 9(e)
shown by looking at prepared samples under a
microscope.
Alternatively if a galvanized metal bucket or similar is
available then it is often possible to see the crystal
grains clearly with the naked eye. Sometimes the
surface needs a light clean in order to show the grains
clearly.

Changes of state (boiling) If water is heated with a constant source of energy input Practical or 9(i)
(electrical heater or Bunsen flame) and the temperature demonstration
is recorded it is possible to demonstrate graphically that
at the change in state from liquid to gas there is no
change in temperature whilst energy is still being
supplied to the system. The water needs to be
constantly stirred and care needs to be taken that the
container does not boil dry.
Data-logging equipment could also be used to
investigate evaporation and the energy changes
involved.

Elasticity and springs Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 10(b), 10(f)

Finding the Young modulus of a Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 10(c), 10(d)
wire

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Material failure Samples of various materials can be examined under a Practical or 10(g)
microscope in order to illustrate their structures. demonstration
Students could discuss whether they felt that the failure
was brittle or ductile.
Samples could include the wire used in the Young
modulus experiment, a piece of acrylic that has been
snapped, a piece of broken glass or spaghetti.

Measuring the frequency of a A loudspeaker is connected to an audio-frequency Demonstration 15(d), 15(j)

sound in air signal generator and a note is produced. A microphone
is connected to an oscilloscope and it is adjusted until a
stable trace is shown. By adjusting the time base and x-
shift knobs to get a good trace, a value for frequency
can be calculated.
Knowing the speed of sound in air will allow a value of
wavelength to be calculated.

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Measurement of the speed of A microphone is connected to a dual-beam Practical 15(d), 15(j),
sound in air using a dual-beam oscilloscope. The other connection of the oscilloscope 15(b)
oscilloscope is connected to an audio-frequency signal generator
and loudspeaker. Slowly move the microphone and
observe the phase differences between the two traces.
Measure the distance the microphone moves as the
traces on the oscilloscope move from one in-phase
position to the next in-phase position. This distance is
the wavelength of the sound.
Determine the frequency of the sound from the
oscilloscope traces and use the equation v = fλ to
calculate the speed of sound.

The relationship between sound A loudspeaker is connected to an audio-frequency Practical or 15(f)

intensity and distance signal generator and a note is produced. A microphone demonstration
is connected to an oscilloscope and it is adjusted until a
stable trace is shown. By changing the distance
between the microphone and the loudspeaker, the
amplitude of the trace on the oscilloscope can be
related to the sound amplitude and hence to intensity.
Depending on the equipment and the acoustics this
may not deliver high quality results. The inverse square
law is outside the syllabus but the experiment can
provide a useful open-ended investigation or an
opportunity for evaluation.

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Measurement of the speed of A glass or plastic tube that is open at both ends with a Practical 15(k), 15(d),
sound in air using stationary half-metre rule attached to it is placed inside a larger 16(b)
waves container filled with water. A tuning fork of known
frequency is struck and held just above the tube. The
tube is then raised until the sound reaches a maximum
loudness. The length of tube above water level is
measured.
This is then repeated for different tuning forks and a
data set for frequency f and length l of tube is recorded.
Analysis of the standing wave gives λ = 4l and from this
and v = fλ the speed of sound can be calculated.

Young’s slits A laser beam is passed through a double slit (typically Practical or 16(g), 16(h),
less than ½ mm apart) and onto a screen several demonstration 16(i), 16(e)
metres away. From measurements of the interference
pattern, the wavelength of light may be calculated (if the
slit separation is known) or the slit separation may be
calculated (if the wavelength is known).
It is possible to perform this experiment with a more
conventional light source (ideally over 40W), lenses and
slits. If this is the case then the distance to the screen is
likely to need to be reduced in order to gain a visible
pattern.

Diffraction grating A similar experiment to the Young’s slits experiment Practical or 16(j), 16(i), 16(e)
can be carried out with a diffraction grating. demonstration

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Using an oscilloscope as a A very quick demonstration will involve connecting a Demonstration 19(d)
voltmeter cell or any d.c. supply to an oscilloscope and adjusting
the controls to gain and measure a reading. Depending
upon the oscilloscope it may be advisable to turn the
time base off in order to make this demonstration more
clear.
a.c. power supplies can also be connected (with the
time base on). This provides an excellent introduction to
the oscilloscope and explaining what the controls do
and how they can be adjusted.

Measuring the resistivity of a Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 19(h), 19(l)

wire
Behaviour of a thermistor A thermistor is connected to a digital multimeter able to Practical 19(j)
read the resistance directly and is then placed in a
beaker of water. The water is heated and the
temperature measured. A set of temperature and
resistance readings can be collected and a calibration
graph for the thermistor plotted. The range of the data
can be extended if ice is used.
This can give students experience of selecting the
appropriate scale on a multimeter as well as an
introduction to calibration curves.
The experiment could also be done using a battery or
power supply and an ammeter or voltmeter (either or
both of which could be digital multimeters).

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Ohm’s law A simple circuit with a variable d.c. power supply, an Practical 19(k), 19(h)
ammeter, a voltmeter and a resistor can be used to
investigate Ohm’s law experimentally and to determine
the resistance. Readings should be taken for positive
and negative values of p.d. In most cases this will just
mean swapping the connectors of the resistor supply
around.
If standard meters are used, it is important to choose
the resistor well in order to get a good set of readings.
This is less of an issue if digital multimeters are used.
Safety note: the resistor can get very hot, particularly if
the resistance is low. A milliammeter and a 1 kΩ
resistor will be suitable.

I-V characteristics of a filament A simple circuit with a variable d.c. power supply, an Practical 19(i), 19(f)
lamp and a semiconductor ammeter, a voltmeter and a filament lamp can be used
diode to plot the I-V characteristics of a filament lamp. The
experiment can then be repeated using a
semiconductor diode.
The power consumption of each component at a
specified voltage can be determined from the graphs.

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
Internal resistance of a dry cell A simple circuit with a voltmeter, an ammeter, a dry cell Practical 19(o)
and a variable resistor (suggested 10Ω to 100Ω) is set
up. The resistance is varied and a set of readings for
the p.d. across the cell and current in the circuit is
collected. From this data the internal resistance can be
determined from a graph of p.d. against current.
The variable resistor and the internal resistance need to
be of comparable resistance and it may be necessary
to connect a fixed resistor in series with the dry cell in
order to simulate a larger internal resistance than is
actually present.

Internal resistance of a potato A similar experiment to the internal resistance of a dry Practical 19(o)
cell cell can be carried out using a potato cell instead of the
dry cell. The potato cell is constructed from a potato
with zinc and copper sheet electrodes inserted into it.
Similar cells can be constructed from most types of fruit
or vegetable provided that it is moist inside.

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Practical Name Description / comments Suitability for Link to syllabus

practical or learning
demonstration outcomes
LDR and light intensity An LDR is connected to a battery or power supply, an Practical 20(b), 20(k)
ammeter and a voltmeter so that its resistance can be
calculated. The LDR is placed on the zero end of a
metre rule which is pushed inside a thick cardboard
tube with black paper around it. At the other end of the
tube is a lamp. The LDR is moved towards and away
from the lamp and resistance and distance are
recorded.
If the LDR has been calibrated beforehand (or if the
manufacturer provides calibration details) then the
variation of light intensity with distance can be
investigated.

Potential divider Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical 20(j)

Measuring g using a pendulum Detailed in Appendix 2. Practical -

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Appendix 2: Examples of AS practicals

Each of the ten practical activities in this appendix consists of a student worksheet, teaching
notes and technical notes. These have been printed on separate pages for ease of
photocopying: teachers are welcome to photocopy these pages for use within their own
schools.
It is assumed that students will, as a matter of course, be required to write a brief account
with a diagram of the experimental arrangement. The worksheets do not make this
requirement explicit.
In all cases, the practical activities could be adapted to allow for the fact that different schools
have different apparatus available. Most may also be adapted to change the practical skills
that are given emphasis. The intention, in this appendix, is to illustrate how an idea for a
practical activity may be worked up into student worksheets, teaching notes and technical
notes.

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