ASPECT: Advancing Science Performance with Emerging Computer Technologies

利用新兴计算机技术提高科学表现（ASPECT）结合了Unity（跨平台游戏引擎和集成开发环境）和尖端的触觉技术，为小学高年级学生提供了一种访问核心科学内容的新方法，超越了今天课堂上通常做的事情。触觉反馈可能会涉及到尚未开发的具体知识。当人们考虑到许多学校科学概念（如浮力、磁力和分子间作用力）背后的不可见方面时，这种能力就变得重要起来。触觉界面使学习者能够接触到无形的力量（在现实世界中通常很难或不可能创造），并有助于填补个人对抽象科学内容推理链的空白。支撑这个探索性项目的核心研究问题是：触觉反馈的增加如何影响用户对核心（通常是无形的）科学内容的理解？这项工作是由北卡罗来纳州立大学、复兴计算机研究所和当地学校系统的一个跨学科团队进行的。该项目包括教育、计算机科学、艺术和设计方面的专家。该项目采用信息设计方法；积极吸引儿童和当地STEM专家教师参与模拟的开发和测试，帮助学生了解浮力、磁力和分子力，强调因果、系统和能量等横切概念。模拟支持学生的科学探究与模拟认知工具，包括辅助背景信息的及时呈现和虚拟科学笔记本规划工具。评估和测试包括针对儿童和STEM教师的焦点小组，使用低技术版本的模拟，以获取有关美术作品、角色特征、故事板教学序列以及表现和学习的潜在衡量标准的反馈。可用性测试生成关于任务性能（包括成功率、完成时间和工作量）、用户行为和用户偏好的数据，并为迭代开发过程提供信息。在每次模拟的设计周期接近尾声时，正在通过一系列以教室为基础的小规模试点测试，对影响进行初步估计。这些试点研究采用随机前测后测对照组研究设计，每年选取40-60名3-5年级学生作为方便样本。参与者被分成四组（基于所教授的潜在力的触觉和视觉渲染）：没有（只是模拟对象的基本渲染，没有视觉或触觉力），视觉渲染（包括所涉及的力的可视化），力的触觉渲染（没有力的可视化），以及力的视觉加触觉渲染。混合方法方法用于收集关于受试者对目标内容的概念的定量和定性数据。测量方法包括开放式问题、绘图任务、概念映射、客观封闭式问题和回顾性探究。一个主要的推力方面是为儿童如何在多感官学习环境中整合和使用视觉和触觉信息的更具包容性的认知模型奠定基础。ASPECT探索性工作的直接成果是概念验证，即触觉可以成功地与Unity平台集成，以构建增强和深化高年级学生科学学习的模拟。这项研究还将有助于制定科学模拟触觉增强的设计指南，可供其他研究人员使用。

Advancing Science Performance with Emerging Computer Technologies (ASPECT) combines Unity (a cross-platform game engine and integrated development environment) with cutting-edge haptic technology to provide upper elementary students with a new way of accessing core science content, reaching beyond what is typically done in today's classrooms. Haptic feedback may engage embodied knowledge that would otherwise lie untapped. This affordance becomes important when one considers the invisible aspects that undergird many school science concepts (e.g. buoyancy, magnetism, and intermolecular forces.) Haptic interfaces provide learners access to invisible forces (often difficult or impossible to create in real-world scenarios) and may help fill gaps in an individual's chain of reasoning about abstract science content. The core research question that undergirds this exploratory project is: How does the addition of haptic feedback influence users' understandings of core, often invisible, science content? The work is conducted by a cross disciplinary team from North Carolina State University, the Renaissance Computing Institute a local school system. The projecct includes experts in education, computer science, and art and design. The project uses an informant design approach; actively engaging children and local expert STEM teachers in the development and testing of simulations to help students learn about buoyancy, magnetism, and molecular forces emphasizing crosscutting concepts like cause and effect, systems, and energy. The simulations support student scientific inquiry with in-simulation cognitive tools including the just-in-time presentation of ancillary background information and a virtual science notebook planning tool. Evaluation and testing includes focus groups with children and STEM teacher informants using low-tech versions of the simulations to elicit feedback on artwork, character features, storyboarded instructional sequences, and potential measures of performance and learning. Usability testing generates data on task performance (including success rate, completion time, and workload) user behavior, and user preference and feeds the iterative development process. Preliminary estimates of the impact are being made through a series of small-scale classroom-based pilot tests near the end of the design cycle for each simulation. These pilot studies employ a randomized pre-test-post-test control group research design with convenience samples of 40-60 grade 3-5 students each year. Participants are split into four groups (based on the haptic and visual rendering of the underlying forces being taught): none (just basic rendering of the objects in the simulation with no visual or haptic forces), visual rendering (including visualization of the forces involved), haptic rendering of forces (with no visualization of forces), and visual plus haptic rendering of forces. A mixed-methods approach is used to garner both quantitative and qualitative data regarding subjects' conceptions of the target content. Measures include open-ended questions, drawing tasks, concept mapping, objective close-ended questions, and retrospective probing. A main thrust ASPECT is to lay the groundwork for a more inclusive cognitive model of how children integrate and use visual and haptic information in multisensory learning environments. The immediate product of ASPECT's exploratory work is the proof-of-concept that haptics can be successfully integrated with the Unity platform to build simulations that enhance and deepen upper elementary students' science learning. The study will also contribute to the development of design guidelines for the haptic-augmentation of science simulations that can be used by other researchers.