A case study on the integration of phyphox into science lesson plans: Preservice teachers’ experiences and opinions

Abstract

Becoming proficient in lesson planning is an important skill that preservice teachers must gain in their education. The aim of this article is to examine in detail how preservice science teachers can make use of the mobile application Phyphox by downloading it onto their mobile phones and incorporating the system into the lesson plans they prepare in line with the 5E Learning Model. The study also seeks to report on the opinions and experiences of preservice teachers in this context. This is a case study that was carried out with 43 preservice teachers. Accordingly, after a two-hour Phyphox training ses sion, the participating preservice teachers were asked to prepare a lesson plan on a topic of their choice in science using the Phyphox application. The study data were collected with the lesson plans, a lesson plan evaluation questionnaire, and a semi-structured interview form. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used in the data analysis. At the end of the study, the highest grade level the preservice teachers’ lesson plans addressed was the fifth grade and the application was largely used in the Explore stage. Also, the “light” experiment was the most popularly utilized Phyphox feature. Furthermore, the study showed that the activity of preparing Phyphox-supported lesson plans proved to be beneficial to the preservice teachers in various ways. It is suggested that additional qualitative studies are conducted on the impact of offering preservice teachers the opportunity to gain the experience of preparing Phyphox-supported lesson plans.