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

当不能直接观察到现象时，学生对科学概念和原理的理解是一个特别的挑战。这个问题已经成为有效的化学教学和成功的学生学习的核心。我们的目标是确定学生的个体差异是否会影响以过程和结果为基础的评估标准来衡量可视化学习科学概念的有效性。研究人员还将制定在更广泛的化学和STEM领域中使用可视化作为教学工具的设计原则。中心问题是：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着学生的特征而变化；使用模式是否影响教学干预。在一系列涉及四个机构的本科生的随机对照实验中，调查人员将：(A)确定基线化学知识、空间能力、推理能力和学习兴趣；(B)使用眼动跟踪来表征学生在观看可视化时所依赖的每时每刻的扫描和注视过程；(C)利用同步访谈方案来评估学习策略和知识获取；以及(D)实施可视化后测试，以检查学生对可视化内容和知识应用的记忆。

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.