The use of cartoon animations, comic strips and concept cartoons in Physics teaching

Abstract

Television has become a common aspect in the lives of our students, cartoons being the most followed (Ferres, 1994; Fisch et al, 1997 as cited in Palacios and Gonzalez, 2002). I used this to my advantage, by seeking ways on how to include such mass media in the students' formal education. Therefore, I designed my own cartoon animations, accompanied by comic strips and concept cartoons, all following a constructivist approach. My main research questions were to check whether students are more engaged and motivated when presented with such resources. The second research question was to find if such an approach helps students understand the physics better. The final research question was to check whether such material can support the teaching of Physics to secondary school students. To answer my research questions, an evaluation of the resources was carried out in a boys' and girls' Area Secondary school, where a total of eight observations were done with one Form 3 class from each school. Following, the observations, the students were divided into focus groups and eight teachers were interviewed, two of which made use of the resources with the aforementioned classes. The results of this study firstly showed, that the resources served as good motivating tools. Secondly, it was shown that students had understood more than when presented with a 'traditional' lesson. Thirdly, all resources were perceived as being beneficial in the teaching of Physics; the cartoon animation being the most effective.