Comparison of Experts and Novices in Determining the Gravitational Acceleration using Mobile Phone with Phyphox Application

Abstract

With the advancement of technology, mobile phones have become the preferred instrument for monitoring a variety of phenomena in the science classroom. There are numerous applications designed to measure the magnitude of gravitational acceleration, Phyphox being one that has yet to be tested. In this study, we comprehensively assess the reliability of Phyphox application through 35 pre-service students (novices) and 5 experts by investigating the experimental mean gravity and limitations and response, specifically the differences between novices and experts in determining gravitational acceleration using a mobile phone with Phyphox and three mathematical analyses: taking average after formula substitution, manual plot, and commercial plot. The results showed that the experimental values of gravitational acceleration done by novices and experts match the theoretical value reported by the National Institute of Metrology (Thailand), with no significant difference in performance between them at .10 level. However, when comparing novices' performance across three mathematical analyses, novices' responses for manually plot differ significantly from those obtained for taking average after formula substitution and commercial plot at .05 level, which is due to some constraints related to novice plotting skills and the minimum experiment height of 0.100 m. This work paves the way for pre-service teachers to use Phyphox to determine the magnitude of gravitational acceleration using three mathematical analyses ranging from the most basic (i.e. taking average) to the most advanced (i.e. commercial plot) in order to assist them in assigning the free-falling experiment to schoolchildren using the most appropriate method of analysis.