FIRE: Conceptualizing Non-Contact Forces: The Efficacy of Visuohaptic Simulations

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The project will investigate the efficacy of real-time, interactive visuohaptic (visualization and force feedback) simulations for teaching STEM concepts. It focuses on the learning of non-contact forces, where conceptualization of force fields, traditionally represented visually by field lines, may be enhanced by the ability to feel the forces directly. The research team partners a haptic engineer and visualization expert from Purdue with a science education researcher from North Carolina State University. A key pedagogical innovation of the approach is to enable middle and high school students to experience forces through their own somatosensory system in real time, allowing them to discover phenomena that may seem surprising based on their current knowledge. The team will develop simulations centered around magnetic and electric fields. They will then conduct a series of randomized controlled experiments with approximately 500 students at grades 4, 8, 12, and at the undergraduate level, investigating the efficacy of the simulations as an aid to learning as well as exploring how and what the students learned. Through in-depth interviews and observations they will also assess the effects that participation has on student attitudes toward science instruction. The project has the potential to move haptic educational applications into a new generation of highly effective and engaging tools for teaching STEM topics that are not easily addressed through visual or auditory means alone.