INTERAPT - interactive and adaptive Physics Labs Courses

The project aims to redesign a laboratory module for physics students by developing interactive, adaptive materials for all phases of the lab course. These materials are intended to support a more flexible use of scripts and experiments that responds to students’ motivation and prior knowledge. In this way, the project seeks to strengthen the connection between theoretical understanding and experimental practice while also addressing the diversity of the student group, particularly with regard to prior knowledge, learning backgrounds, academic goals, and areas of interest. Alongside subject-specific learning, an important objective is to foster students’ motivation and curiosity.

The project responds to a perceived gap between the intended goals of the lab course and students’ actual experience of it. To address this, interactive and adaptive materials are being developed to accompany students throughout preparation, experimentation, and data analysis. The broader aim is to create a multimedia-based overall concept for a lab module in which interactive and adaptive elements are integrated into every phase of the course. This is meant to support students in developing their own hypotheses already during the preparation stage and to strengthen both their motivation and the learning potential of the course through more individualized learning pathways.

You can read an article from the online edition of "Forschung & Lehre" on adaptive teaching here , which also discusses the project “INTERAPT”.

From the Preliminary Study to the First Implementation

Project Overview

Before the project could be put into practice for the first time, a preliminary study was carried out in June 2025. Professors, tutors, and students were asked about the aims of the lab course, their previous experiences, the challenges they had encountered, and possible areas for improvement. The results showed that for many students, the lab manual was the main basis for preparing for a given experiment, although this preparation was often relatively brief. Older lab reports were also frequently used for revision and for writing up the final report, which meant that independent work sometimes receded into the background and physical concepts were not always worked through by the students themselves.

On this basis, a pilot learning module was first developed for one selected experiment. Its initial implementation took place in the introductory physics lab course in the winter semester of 2025/26. This first implementation was accompanied by two rounds of data collection: one survey on the day of the experiment, or shortly beforehand, and another about two weeks later, when the lab report was due. The aim was not only to test the introduction of the module itself, but also from the outset to gain insight into how students worked with the material and how they experienced the connection between preparation, experimentation, and follow-up work.

Pilot Project: Pohl Resonator

The Pohl resonator was chosen as the first experiment to be revised for several reasons. The feedback from the preliminary study showed that it was seen as one of the experiments most in need of improvement. At the same time, it deals with oscillation, damping and resonance, which are fundamental concepts in physics. It is also well suited to the integration of adaptive and more advanced elements. This makes it a particularly suitable starting point for testing and further developing the new concept.

The corresponding interactive learning module puts this idea into practice. It includes self-study elements such as decision trees, short questions, optional additional material and interactive simulations. It is deliberately designed as a non-linear learning environment. Rather than following one fixed sequence, students can move through the experiment in different ways without having to choose between completely separate paths at every step. Depending on their needs, the focus can lie more on theory, experimental work or in-depth exploration.

These different routes include theory-based approaches, more experimentally focused pathways with closer attention to the setup and the measurement process, options with more advanced analysis and a pathway that includes programming and numerical modelling. There are also more open and faster-paced options for advanced students. Thus, the module responds to differences in prior knowledge, interests and levels of experience without changing the shared learning goals. This is how the project aims are realised: preparation becomes more substantial, theory and experiment are more closely connected and the lab course is experienced more clearly as an independent space for experimental learning.

First Student Feedback

The feedback from students after the first implementation showed that the basic idea behind the learning module was generally received positively. In particular, the interactive elements, the visualisations and the possibility of taking different routes through the experiment were repeatedly described as useful. At the same time, it also became clear that some aspects of the implementation still need improvement. Several students found the module rather extensive and in some places difficult to navigate. There were also problems with orientation, confusion caused by multiple tabs and backtracking, and some technical issues, for example with tests on the iPad. The different routes through the module were not always experienced as helpful either, but sometimes as unsettling, because some students were concerned that they might miss important content by taking a different path. Overall, the feedback shows that the idea behind the learning module has been well received, but that its structure, navigation and overall clarity still need to be improved.

Outlook

Work on the next revision is already underway. The next experiment to be revised will be the one on Specific Heat Capacity. In doing so, the feedback from students so far will not only be taken into account but used deliberately to guide the next stage of development. It will therefore be interesting to see how the next implementation is received and what further improvements can be drawn from that feedback.

DPG Dresden 2026

At the DPG conference in Dresden, Jasper Cirkel and Josefine Neuhaus presented initial insights into our project. We had the opportunity to discuss our implementation and exchange further ideas with colleagues from physics education research, solid-state physics and physical chemistry. These conversations were highly valuable and we look forward to incorporating some of these new perspectives into the project.

Here you can take a look at the poster