Using Educational Comics in Physics Teaching for Chemistry and Biochemistry Students: Impact on Motivation and Domain-Specific Conceptual Gains

This study demonstrates that using educational comics as an active learning strategy in physics workshops for chemistry and biochemistry students significantly improves conceptual understanding and motivation, evidenced by positive gains on the Force Concept Inventory and enhanced student attitudes toward the subject.

The Gist

Imagine you are trying to teach a group of future chemists and pharmacists about physics. Now, imagine these students look at physics the way a cat looks at a vacuum cleaner: with suspicion, anxiety, and a strong desire to run away. They see physics as a boring, scary hurdle they have to jump over just to get their degree, not as a tool that helps them understand the world.

This paper is about an experiment to see if we can change that feeling—and actually help them learn—by swapping the boring textbook for something fun: educational comics.

Here is the story of what happened, explained simply.

The Problem: The "Boring Hurdle"

The researchers noticed that in chemistry and pharmacy programs, students often dread physics. They treat it like a chore. Because they are so stressed and uninterested, they don't really get the concepts. It's like trying to fill a bucket that has a hole in the bottom; no matter how much water (information) you pour in, it just leaks out because the students' minds are closed off by anxiety.

The Solution: The "Comic Book Bridge"

Instead of lecturing for an hour, the teachers tried a new approach. They used educational comics as the main activity.

• The Analogy: Think of a comic book as a bridge. On one side is the scary, abstract world of physics formulas. On the other side is the student's everyday life. The comic connects the two. It uses pictures and stories to make the physics feel less like a math test and more like a conversation.
• The Method: Students sat in small groups, read the comics, and discussed the problems inside them. The teacher acted like a guide, asking questions to help them figure things out together, rather than just giving answers.

The Results: Did it Work?

The researchers measured two things: Brain Power (did they learn the concepts?) and Heart Power (did they like the subject more?).

1. The Brain Power (Learning Concepts)

They gave the students a tough test called the "Force Concept Inventory" (think of it as a physics driving test) before and after the comic intervention.

• The Score: The average score went up, but not by a massive amount. It went from a "D" to a "C" (roughly 15% correct to 33% correct).
• The Catch: The students did best on the specific topics covered in the comics. It's like if you practiced driving only on city streets; you'd get really good at city driving, but maybe not highway driving.
• The Takeaway: The comics helped them understand the specific stories they read, but they didn't magically turn everyone into physics geniuses. The learning was "low-to-medium," which is actually pretty normal for this kind of short-term experiment.

2. The Heart Power (Motivation & Feelings)

This is where the magic happened. They asked students how they felt about physics before and after.

• The Shift: The results were much stronger here.
  • Before: "I hate physics," "It's too hard," "I'm lost."
  • After: "I actually enjoy the activities," "I can learn this," "It's not as scary as I thought."
• The Analogy: Imagine the students were walking through a dark, foggy tunnel (anxiety). The comics didn't instantly turn the tunnel into a sunny meadow, but they turned on the lights. The students felt more confident, less anxious, and more curious.

The Big Conclusion: Why This Matters

The paper suggests that comics are like a "pedagogical scaffold."

• What's a scaffold? It's the temporary metal frame builders put around a building to help workers reach high places. You don't build the building out of the scaffold; you use the scaffold to build the building safely.
• The Lesson: The comics didn't instantly make the students experts in physics (the building). Instead, the comics built a safe, friendly platform (the scaffold) that allowed the students to climb up, feel less scared, and start learning.

In simple terms:
The study shows that while comics might not turn a struggling student into a Nobel Prize winner overnight, they are excellent at removing the fear. When students stop being afraid and start thinking, "Hey, this is actually interesting," they become ready to learn. The comics didn't just teach them physics; they taught them that they could do physics.

The Bottom Line: If you want to teach a subject that people are afraid of, don't just throw more facts at them. Give them a story, a picture, and a reason to care. That's how you build the bridge to learning.

Technical Summary

1. Problem Statement

The study addresses persistent challenges in teaching physics to undergraduate students in health-related chemical science programs (Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Biochemistry). Key issues identified include:

• Low Conceptual Understanding: Students often possess strong prior misconceptions that are not resolved by traditional instruction.
• Instrumental Perception: Physics is frequently viewed merely as a curricular requirement rather than a discipline with intrinsic educational value.
• Affective Barriers: High levels of academic anxiety, low motivation, and negative emotional responses toward physics hinder engagement and learning.
• Limitations of Traditional Methods: Conventional instructional approaches in introductory, non-specialist courses tend to yield limited conceptual gains.

The authors propose investigating whether educational comics, utilized as an active learning strategy, can serve as a pedagogical scaffold to improve both conceptual understanding and student motivation in this specific context.

2. Methodology

• Study Design: A quasi-experimental pretest–posttest design without a control group.
• Participants: 60 undergraduate students enrolled in physics workshops at Universidad Viña del Mar (UVM) during the second semester of 2025. The final paired sample for conceptual analysis consisted of 22 students who completed both pre- and post-tests.
• Intervention:
  • Strategy: Systematic use of educational comics as the central activity in physics workshops.
  • Structure: Four one-hour sessions (weeks 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9) involving guided reading, small-group collaborative discussion (groups of 3–4), and resolution of contextualized problems using whiteboards.
  • Content: Topics included scientific calculator use, linear kinematics (including graph interpretation), forces, and work–energy.
  • Role of Instructor: Facilitator promoting conceptual discussion, cognitive conflict, and reasoning through guiding questions.
• Instruments:
  • Conceptual Understanding: The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) (2011 version, Spanish translation), administered as a pretest and posttest. It consists of 30 multiple-choice items assessing mechanics reasoning non-algorithmically.
  • Motivation and Attitudes: A 7-item, 5-point Likert-type survey (pre- and post-test) measuring dimensions of interest, self-efficacy, anxiety, and perceived usefulness. Items included both positively and negatively worded statements.

3. Key Contributions

• Domain-Specific Analysis: The study differentiates between FCI items directly related to the comic-intervened content versus those that were not, allowing for a granular analysis of instructional alignment.
• Integrated Evaluation: It simultaneously assesses cognitive gains (FCI) and affective shifts (motivation/attitudes), providing a holistic view of the intervention's impact.
• Contextual Relevance: It specifically targets non-physics majors (Chemistry/Biochemistry), a demographic where physics is often marginalized, testing the efficacy of visual narratives in reducing the "instrumental" view of the subject.

4. Results

A. Conceptual Gains (FCI)

• Overall Gain: The average normalized gain ($\langle g \rangle$) for the total 30-item FCI was 0.21, falling within the "low-to-medium" range typical for introductory courses without major curricular overhauls.
  • Pretest average: ~15% correct.
  • Posttest average: ~33% correct.
• Differentiated Analysis:
  • Intervention-Related Items (20 items): $\langle g \rangle \approx 0.23$. Correct responses rose from 12% to 32%.
  • Non-Intervention Items (10 items): $\langle g \rangle \approx 0.19$. Correct responses rose from 20% to 35%.
• Interpretation: The higher gain in items directly addressed by the comics suggests a strong alignment between the instructional design and specific conceptual domains. However, high heterogeneity in individual gains was observed.

B. Motivation and Attitudes

• Positive Shifts: Significant improvements were observed in:
  • Self-efficacy: "I learn Physics easily" increased from 1.53 to 2.38 (largest change).
  • Interest: "I like studying Physics" increased from 2.32 to 2.77.
  • Perceived Usefulness: Improvements were noted in items regarding the application of physics in daily activities.
• Reduction in Negative Emotions: A substantial decrease in agreement with "I find it difficult to learn Physics" (dropping from 2.77 to 0.92), indicating a reduction in perceived difficulty and anxiety.
• Contradictory Findings: Some negatively worded items regarding the relevance of physics (e.g., "I find nothing interesting," "Physics is a waste of time") showed an increase in agreement levels post-intervention. The authors attribute this to the broader curricular context where physics remains an isolated requirement, limiting its perceived professional relevance despite improved classroom experiences.

5. Significance and Conclusions

• Pedagogical Scaffold: The study concludes that educational comics function effectively as a pedagogical scaffold. Their primary contribution is not necessarily a massive, direct increase in overall conceptual performance (which remained low-to-medium), but rather the creation of favorable learning conditions.
• Affective Impact: The intervention successfully modified students' affective relationship with physics, reducing emotional barriers (anxiety, frustration) and enhancing self-efficacy and interest. This is critical for sustaining learning processes in non-specialist contexts.
• Instructional Alignment: The results confirm that conceptual gains are maximized when the visual narrative is explicitly aligned with the targeted learning objectives.
• Future Directions: The authors suggest that future research should employ control groups, longer intervention periods, and follow-up assessments to determine the long-term retention of these gains.

Summary Verdict: The use of educational comics in physics workshops for chemistry and biochemistry students is a viable strategy for improving student motivation and reducing affective barriers. While conceptual gains were moderate, they were significantly higher in domains directly targeted by the comics, suggesting that visual narratives are most effective when integrated intentionally with specific learning goals to support conceptual change.