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

该项目将研究实时、交互式视觉触觉（可视化和力反馈）模拟在STEM概念教学中的效果。它侧重于非接触力的学习，其中力场的概念化，传统上用场线视觉表示，可以通过直接感受到力的能力来增强。该研究团队的合作伙伴是普渡大学的一名触觉工程师和可视化专家，以及北卡罗来纳州立大学的一名科学教育研究员。该方法的一个关键教学创新是使初高中学生能够通过他们自己的体感系统实时体验力量，使他们能够根据他们现有的知识发现可能看起来令人惊讶的现象。该团队将以磁场和电场为中心进行模拟。然后，他们将对大约500名4年级、8年级、12年级和本科生进行一系列随机对照实验，调查模拟作为辅助学习的效果，以及探索学生如何学习和学习的内容。通过深入访谈和观察，他们还将评估参与对学生对科学教学态度的影响。该项目有可能将触觉教育应用转变为新一代高效且引人入胜的工具，用于教授仅通过视觉或听觉手段难以解决的STEM主题。

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.