Possible Technical Problems Encountered by The Teacher in The Incorporation of Mobile Phone Sensors in The Physics Lab

摘要

Several suggestions for the use of Mobile Phone (MP) sensors in science teaching are found in the literature, and most of them focus on proposing physics experiments that can be conducted with the aid of the sensors that commonly exist in smartphones. The proposed experiments rely on the Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) approach, that is, students are allowed to bring and use their own MPs in the classroom or school science lab. The present study investigates (a) the variations in the results of experiments, and (b) other possible "technical" difficulties which arise when students use their personal MPs to take measurements with acceleration, sound, and light sensors because of the fact that the devices may be technologically different. According to the findings, as regards the acceleration and sound sensors, the teacher who decides to use the students' MPs in classroom experiments will not encounter problems with statistically significant differences in the results of the same experiment conducted with different devices. In contrast, the use of light sensors resulted in considerable difficulties, which made it possible to use only a small percentage of devices. Finally, the illuminance indications vary significantly between the devices, making it impossible to use them as reliable photometers.