Virtual Reality to Improve Students’ Understanding of the Extremes of Scale in STEM

该项目由EHR核心研究(ECR)计划资助，该计划支持推进STEM学习和学习环境的基础研究、扩大STEM的参与以及STEM劳动力发展的工作。这个项目将调查如何在虚拟现实(VR)中提高学生对比例和数感(算术)的理解。研究表明，所有年龄段的学生对与科学相关的实体的大小都有不准确的看法。例如，学生们很难区分分子和细胞的大小，或者地球的月球和太阳的差异的大小。由于许多STEM领域--从病毒学到天文学--都涉及到在极端尺度下进行的工作，学生们必须对存在于日常世界经验之外的尺度形成准确的概念。对尺度的不准确理解可能会模糊数字表示法对现实世界的适用性，并成为进入STEM的障碍。该项目将创建Scale World，这是一个身临其境的虚拟环境，学生可以在其中看到与自己身体相关的各种科学实体，并进行现实的体型比较，这是日常体验中无法复制的。在Scale Worlds内部，科学实体--如蓝鲸和水分子--将分布在不同的环境中，每个环境对应一个不同的科学指数。学生将能够看到自己的身体，并能够相对于这些实体的大小增加或减少，科学和标准记数法中的数字符号是主要的导航手段。Scale Worlds的开发将包括对31个不同环境的迭代设计，使用多模式经验线索来加强Scale，与VR中的可用性专家进行分析性评估，以及与非专家学生进行形成性评估。一项与中学生和本科生的对比研究将参与者分配到基于投影的虚拟环境(或称CAVE)、头盔VR显示器或非VR桌面模拟条件下，桌面条件是沉浸程度最低的。随后的研究将在两个版本的Scale Worlds中观察学生精确的身体动作以及相应的言语表达：一个版本具有完整的结构元素和多模式经验线索，另一个版本具有精简的特征集。这将让我们深入了解这些功能对参与度的影响。项目成果包括：(A)加强科学和标准记数法的两个经过验证的缩放环境版本；(B)虚拟现实可用性指南；(C)针对STEM教育工作者的技术使用建议；以及(D)将与实习教师合作开发的利用Scale Worlds进行STEM学习和计算的公开可访问课程计划。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This project will investigate how students’ understanding of scale and number sense (numeracy) can be improved in virtual reality (VR). Research shows that students of all ages hold inaccurate ideas about the size of scientifically relevant entities. For instance, students have difficulty distinguishing the magnitude of difference between the sizes of molecules and cells, or between Earth’s moon and the sun. Because many STEM fields—from virology to astronomy—involve work conducted at extremes of scale, students must develop accurate conceptions of scales that exist well beyond their everyday experience of the world. An inaccurate understanding of scale can obscure the applicability of numeric representation to the real world and become a barrier for entry to STEM. This project will create Scale Worlds, an immersive virtual environment, where students can see various scientific entities in relation to their own bodies and conduct realistic size comparisons that cannot be replicated in everyday experience. Inside Scale Worlds, scientific entities—such as a blue whale and a water molecule—will be distributed among distinct environments, each of which corresponds to a different exponent in scientific notation. Students will be able to see their own bodies and increase or decrease in size relative to these entities, with numeric symbols in scientific and standard notation serving as the primary means of navigation. Development of Scale Worlds will include the iterative design of 31 distinct environments with multimodal experiential cues that reinforce scale, analytical evaluation with usability experts in VR, and formative evaluation with non-expert students. A comparative study with middle school and undergraduate students will assign participants to a projection-based virtual environment (or “CAVE”), head-mounted VR display, or non-VR desktop simulation condition, with the desktop condition being the lowest level of immersion. A subsequent study will observe students’ precise body movements along with corresponding verbalizations in two versions of Scale Worlds: one with the full feature set of structural elements and multimodal experiential cues, and the other with a reduced feature set. This will offer insight into the impact of these features on engagement. Project outcomes include: (a) two validated versions of a scaling environment that reinforces scientific and standard notation; (b) virtual reality usability guidelines; (c) recommendations for STEM educators on technology use; and (d) publicly accessible lesson plans for leveraging Scale Worlds for STEM learning and numeracy, which will be developed in partnership with practicing teachers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.