Collaborative Proposal: Students' Attempts at Understanding the Unobservable: A Multi-Method Approach to Visualization Analysis and Design (Empirical Contextual Research Strand)

学生理解科学概念和原则提出了一个特殊的挑战时，现象是不能直接观察。这个问题已经成为化学有效教学和学生成功学习的核心。我们的目标是确定学生的个体差异是否影响可视化学习科学概念的有效性，以过程和基于产品的评价指标进行测量。研究人员还将制定更广泛地在化学和STEM领域使用可视化作为教学工具的设计原则。核心问题是：学生在试图理解不可观察的化学内容时何时以及如何依赖可视化;对可视化的依赖是否随学生特征而变化;以及使用模式是否为教学干预提供信息。在一系列涉及四个机构的本科生的随机对照实验中，研究人员将：（a）确定基线化学知识，空间能力，推理能力和学习兴趣;（B）使用眼动追踪来表征学生在观看可视化时所依赖的逐时扫描和注视过程;（c）利用同步访谈协议来评估学习策略和知识获取;及（d）实施视觉化后测试，以检视学生对视觉化内容及知识应用的记忆。

Student comprehension of scientific concepts and principles presents a particular challenge when the phenomena are not directly observable. This issue has emerged as core to effective teaching and successful student learning in chemistry. The goal is to identify whether students' individual differences influence the effectiveness of visualizations for learning scientific concepts as measured with process and product-based metrics of evaluation. The investigators will also develop design principles for the use of visualizations as instructional tools in chemistry and STEM fields more broadly.The central issues are: When and how students rely on visualizations while trying to comprehend unobservable chemistry content; whether reliance on visualizations varies as a function of student characteristics; and whether usage patterns inform instructional interventions. In a series of randomized, controlled experiments involving undergraduates at four institutions, investigators will: (a) determine baseline chemical knowledge, spatial ability, reasoning ability, and interest in learning; (b) use eye tracking to characterize the moment-by-moment scan and fixation processes that students rely on while viewing visualizations; (c) utilize concurrent interview protocols to assess learning strategies and knowledge acquisition; and (d) implement post-visualization tests to examine student memory for the visualization content and application of knowledge.