Abstract:

In the Physics teaching unit of the School of Design Engineering of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), a student’s work guide is being used in a methodological context of teamwork, peer evaluation and effective communication (both written and oral). This work guide consists of several documents. On the one hand, one can find the rubrics that are used for the evaluation of the written documents and the oral presentations. On the other hand, recommendations to improve the effective communication, both for written documents and for the preparation of oral communications and digital files to support them, are also available. In addition, guidelines are offered to students to guide their teamwork, in the laboratory practices and in the practical sessions in the classroom (problems solving). The initial hypotheses are that students consult the above mentioned documents of the guide, and that they help them in their work. From the point of view of the instructors, the general opinion is that the utilization of this guide has served to improve in a significant way the quality of the works performed by students and, as consequence, an improvement of his learning process has occurred. The main objective of this paper has been to evaluate the use that students do of the guide and the perception that they have on its usefulness, in the educational above mentioned context. To do that, several interviews have been performed, in which students have been asked about the use they made of the available material, and also a questionnaire has been designed to check the stated hypotheses. The results and conclusions derived from the interviews and from the questionnaire are shown in this communication. One of the conclusions to be emphasized is that students do a use of the guide which is under the awaited and desirably. It is therefore necessary to keep the process of constant improvement of the guide, updating its composition and contents, by including recommendations on some topics that have not been considered before. This would be the case of the use of new technologies or some help for conflict resolution.