Formative and Summative Evaluations in Learning Physics: Do They Complement Each Other?

A correlational study was conducted to analyse the relationship between students’ performance in problem-based learning (PBL) and final exam scores with two student cohorts. This study focused on PBL as a teaching strategy and how it related to the students’ achievement in the final exam of a physics course. Exam reliability was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha, and values were obtained ranging from .71 to .83. Correlation between students’ scores in PBL and the final exam was analysed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Statistical significant was shown only for semester 2 in Cohort A. For Cohort A semester 1 and both semesters for Cohort B, the correlations were not significant. The corresponding highest Pearson correlation coefficient was .19, which was only for Cohort A semester 2. Coefficients of determination showed that PBL accounted for about 0 to 3.7% of the variance in students’ final exam scores. In all semesters for both cohorts, the difference between final exam scores and PBL scores was significantly higher in the upper quartile of students’ scores, and lower in the lower quartile of students’ scores. Thus, this study showed that PBL can be implemented as one of the teaching strategies to improve some students’ academic achievement

Critical Thinking Session (CTS)

CTS in Physics course provides quantitative and analytic skills needed for analysing data and solving problems in the sciences area. It involves crafting a learning environment where students can explore on their own and understand how the physical world works, and to connect complex scientific concepts to their daily lives. This activity requires students to work as a team

Development Of Conversational Agent To Enhance Learning Experience: Case Study In Pre University

Chatbot is an artificial intelligent application that can converse with a user through textual or auditory method. The chatbot can give a response according to their characteristic and domain knowledge. This study aims to evaluate the use of chatbot named eLVA among students at the Centre for Pre University Studies. A series of 10 questions was distributed to 40 students to evaluate the use of eLVA after they have experienced it. The results indicated that chatbot are most likely to be very helpful in teaching and learning because it has helped students getting an instant response. However, results showed that the main reason for students to stop using chatbot involved getting incorrect information and worried about Chatbot making mistakes. The result further show that there is no significant difference in the use of eLVa between male and female students. The study also found that there is no significant correlation between study program (Physical Sciences/Life Sciences) towards the use of eLVA

Performance of Waste Cooking Oil on Aged Asphalt Mixture

Asphaltic concrete pavement is popular worldwide, but this type of pavement requires frequent maintenance and rehabilitation as it cannot cope up with the increasing number of traffic vehicles and loads. Therefore, modifying asphalt pavement to reduce the damages and defects is necessary, thereby enhancing the serviceability of pavement. This study presents the effect of waste cooking oil on asphalt mixture at different ageing conditions. A 60/70 penetration-grade asphalt binder was used, and 5% of this binder was replaced with untreated and treated waste cooking oil. Asphalt mixtures were prepared at the selected 5% optimum bitumen content and under two tests, i.e. Marshall stability and resilient modulus. The findings showed the better stability and resilient modulus of long-term aged samples incorporated with treated waste cooking oil than the unaged and short-term aged samples. The incorporation of untreated waste cooking oil caused reduced performance compared with the controlled and long-term aged samples. This result can be attributed to the high acid value of waste cooking oil. Therefore, treated waste cooking oil can be used as a binder replacement given its significantly higher performance at the mentioned ageing condition than the controlled mixture.

Scienceploration 2023

The Scienceploration Camp is an initiative of the Centre for Pre-University Studies, UNIMAS (PPPU), which aims to increase the interest in science among secondary school students. It is also an effort taken by PPPU towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 4 in providing equal quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. On top of that, this camp supports Sarawak’s Digital Economy Strategy in nurturing an integrated ecosystem to foster inclusive digital society, by building the right foundations to grow our local digital economy

Stability and rutting resistance of porous asphalt mixture incorporating coconut shells and fibres

The influence of coconut shells (CS) and coconut fibres (CF) on the stability and rutting resistance of porous asphalt mixture is examined. Four different percentage replacement of CS and three different of CF as additives were investigate. CS and CF were put through chemical treatment by soaking them in 5wt% of Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) solution before being involved in the mixture. Marshall Stability and asphalt pavement analyzer are performed to evaluate the Stability and rutting resistance of porous asphalt mixture. It was found that there appears to be an optimum CS replacement level of 10% and 0.3% CS during which the stability and rutting resistance increase significantly

Influence of chemical properties and mineral contents on sandstone strength

Malaysia is a country which experiencing wet tropical weathering. Rock material in this country is affected by weathering action as they exposed to the weathering process throughout the year. In verifying the material properties of rock, laboratory tests are needed to ensure a safe design of structures and foundations.This paper presents the results of laboratory investigation of chemical properties, mineralogical content and mechanical properties of the rocks and the influence of the chemical and mineral contents to the rock strength. This experimental works is about to investigate the significant of chemical content to the rock strength particularly in sedimentary rock of sandstone type. For this purpose, Alkali Silica Reactivity (ASR), Petrographic Image Analysis, Unconfined Compression Strength (UCS), Shear strength and Tensile strength tests were carried out. The correlations between the chemical properties, petrographic characteristics (minerals) and engineering properties of sixteen sandstones samples by simple regression analysis and bar chart were presented. Abundance of quartz mineral, carbonate minerals and cement in the sandstone increase the rock strength, and reduction of easily dissolve mineral like carbonate minerals, reduced the strength of the rocks. This study also suggested that the ASR has less significant to the Shear strength and uniaxial compression strength as the quantity of these deleterious minerals such as opal, chalcedony, volcanic glass, cristobalite, tridymite and cryptocrystalline quartz are very low compared to main minerals

Performance of Waste Cooking Oil on Aged Asphalt Mixture

Asphaltic concrete pavement is popular worldwide, but this type of pavement requires frequent maintenance and rehabilitation as it cannot cope up with the increasing number of traffic vehicles and loads. Therefore, modifying asphalt pavement to reduce the damages and defects is necessary, thereby enhancing the serviceability of pavement. This study presents the effect of waste cooking oil on asphalt mixture at different ageing conditions. A 60/70 penetration-grade asphalt binder was used, and 5% of this binder was replaced with untreated and treated waste cooking oil. Asphalt mixtures were prepared at the selected 5% optimum bitumen content and under two tests, i.e. Marshall stability and resilient modulus. The findings showed the better stability and resilient modulus of long-term aged samples incorporated with treated waste cooking oil than the unaged and short-term aged samples. The incorporation of untreated waste cooking oil caused reduced performance compared with the controlled and long-term aged samples. This result can be attributed to the high acid value of waste cooking oil. Therefore, treated waste cooking oil can be used as a binder replacement given its significantly higher performance at the mentioned ageing condition than the controlled mixture

Stiffness Modulus of Asphaltic Concrete Incorporating Coir Fibre and Subjected to Aging

The aim of this paper is to investigate the performance response of a set of coir fibre modified asphalt samples subjected different ageing conditions and containing three different fibre contents. The laboratory experimental programs are indirect tensile test at 25°C and repeated load axial test at 40°C. The results showed that the fibres improved the mixture’s performance. The main findings obtained at 25°C for short and long-term ageing reveal that low fibre content at around 0.3% per aggregate weight display a stiffness modulus up to 14% higher than that of unmodified mixtures, hence showing that fibres may improve the bearing capacity and rut-resistance of asphalt mixtures. Conversely, as the amount of fibre increases to 0.5% and 0.7%, the stiffness decreases to the point of becoming unacceptably low, almost 80% lower than unmodified mixes stiffness. However the data also reveal that high fibre contents at 0.5% and above completely neutralize the impact of ageing on the mixture, indicating that fibre-modified mixtures would yield longer lives