Exploring Students' Experiences with Phyphox as an Alternative to Photogate for Measuring Gravitational Acceleration

Abstract

The use of technology in physics education is a growing field of study, and the Phyphox app is a popular tool among educators and students. Phyphox offers a variety of features for physics experiments, including the acoustic stopwatch feature, which can be used to measure gravitational acceleration. In this study, we explored students' experiences with using Phyphox as an alternative to the more expensive Photogate for measuring gravitational acceleration. A survey was conducted with a sample of 42 secondary school students who completed a project-based learning activity using Phyphox. The survey included questions on the perceived usefulness and ease of use of the app, as well as open-ended questions on students' overall experiences and suggestions for improvement. A total of 100% of students found Phyphox to be helpful in learning to determine gravitational acceleration, as measured by an acoustic stopwatch feature. In terms of perceived usefulness, 35.7 % of students rated Phyphox a 5 out of 5, 57.1 % rated it a 4, and 7.1 % rated it a 3. Results also showed that 100 % of students believed Phyphox to be a good alternative to study gravitational acceleration, and 95.2 % of students would recommend Phyphox to other students who are trying to learn about this topic. These findings suggest that Phyphox is a valuable learning tool for gravitational acceleration and may be a cost-effective alternative to photogate. However, some students found the app to be somewhat challenging to use, and suggested improvements such as additional tutorial videos and more detailed instructions. Overall, the results of this study suggest that Phyphox is a promising alternative to Photogate for measuring gravitational acceleration, particularly for schools with limited budgets. The free availability of Phyphox on both Android and iOS devices (both mobile and tablet) makes it a convenient and accessible option for students and educators. Further research is needed to fully assess the effectiveness of Phyphox as a learning tool in physics education.