Abstract

Against the background of educational digitalization, smartphone sensors have increasingly been introduced into physics experiment teaching. However, it remains to be empirically examined whether their pedagogical effectiveness derives from the technological features of smartphone sensors themselves or from a structured implementation mechanism. Taking physics experiment courses in teacher education universities as the research context, this study designed a structured experiment training project based on the PDCA cycle. Smartphone sensors were embedded into a competency-oriented task system. A quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test control group design was adopted (N=60), and independent-samples t tests were used to examine the statistical significance of between-group differences. The study systematically evaluated the effects of this model on the development of students’ experimental competency and further conducted a multidimensional analysis based on a satisfaction survey.

The results show that the experimental group achieved significantly greater improvement than the control group in experimental design competency, data collection and analysis competency, and problem-solving competency, with the most notable gains observed in higher-order competencies. Students also gave positive evaluations of the clarity of instructional organization and their classroom participation experience. The findings further indicate that the key to effective technology integration does not lie in the mere introduction of tools, but in whether these tools are embedded in a structured implementation mechanism with clearly defined competency objectives and stable feedback cycles. This study provides a practical pathway, a replicable organizational framework, and empirical evidence for the reform of physics experiment courses in universities with similar resource conditions.

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