EXP: Advancing Early STEM Learning through Haptic Feedback Displays

改善科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育是国家的优先事项。在国际评估中，美国儿童的数学和科学成绩继续落后于国际同龄人。学生不仅在STEM概念方面落后，而且他们对STEM学习的兴趣也较低。虽然对STEM学习的大部分关注发生在K-12年级，但STEM教育的一个重要领域涉及提高幼儿园前（pre-K）水平的数学和科学素养。幼儿有在日常生活中探索和理解STEM概念的自然能力，学习这些早期技能会影响以后的发展。与此同时，早期学习的另一个趋势是在正规和非正规教育环境中越来越多地使用平板电脑。然而，人们对平板电脑如何支持学习知之甚少，尤其是在STEM领域。了解数字化工具可能促进早期STEM学习的条件是一个重要的研究课题，因为平板电脑技术的普及，以及基于平板电脑的内容可能会增加学习者的参与度。然而，反对平板电脑上纯数字内容的一个论点是，对STEM学习很重要的触觉线索和感官体验现在已经消失了。这个项目研究了触觉或触觉反馈的新兴技术-触摸屏显示器是否可以改善学龄前儿童对科学概念的学习。研究结果将有助于幼儿如何学习电子媒体的理论，以及提供设计指导，开发适当的内容，使用新的触觉反馈显示器。这项研究将奠定基础，使其他研究人员能够检查与这种新媒体相关的学习成果，因为它在商业上的可用性增长。关于儿童发展的研究强调，儿童需要有多种模式来参与科学学习，触觉显示器可能是为传统触摸屏添加额外交互模式的一种方式，并创造一种更具沉浸感的具体学习体验。PI将对新的触觉科学学习应用程序进行以人为本的设计，这将涉及学前STEM教育专家创建这些新材料和两个大规模的实验室实验，这些实验将评估触觉反馈在平板电脑学习中的有效性。结果将有助于新的知识（1）如何设计教育媒体利用表面触觉显示器和（2）的条件下，这种技术有效地促进学习和参与幼儿。PI将使开发的应用程序开放供其他研究人员使用，并通过儿童媒体和发展，人机交互和触觉技术工程的跨学科场所传播我们的成果。项目网站（http：//preschoolhaptics.soc.northwestern.edu/）将提供有关项目的信息，并提供对受隐私保护的实验数据和软件工件的访问。

Improving Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education is a national priority. Children in the U.S. have continued to fall behind their international peers in math and science scores on international assessments. Not only are students behind in STEM concepts, but they also show less interest in STEM learning. While much of the focus on STEM learning has occurred in grades K-12, an important area of STEM education involves improving math and science literacies at the pre-kindergarten (pre-K) level. Young children have the natural capacity to explore and understand STEM concepts in everyday life, and learning these early skills affects later development. In parallel, another trend in early learning involves the growing use of tablet computers in both formal and informal educational settings. However, little is known about how tablets support learning, particularly in STEM. Understanding the conditions under which digital tools may promote early STEM learning is an important topic of study given the pervasiveness of tablet technology and that tablet-based content can potentially increase learner engagement. One argument against purely digital content on a tablet computer, however, is that tactile cues and sensory experiences important for STEM learning are now lost. This project examines whether the emerging technology of haptic -- or tactile feedback -- touch-screen displays can improve preschoolers' learning of science concepts. The results will contribute to theories of how young children learn with electronic media as well as offer design guidance for the creation of developmentally appropriate content using novel haptic feedback displays. This research will lay the foundation that will enable other researchers to examine learning outcomes associated with this new media as it grows in commercial availability. Research on child development emphasizes the need for children to have multiple modes to engage in science learning, and haptic displays may be one way to add an additional mode of interaction to traditional touchscreens and create a more immersive, embodied learning experience. The PIs will conduct human-centered design of new haptic science learning applications, which will involve preschool STEM education experts in the creation of these novel materials and two large-scale laboratory experiments that will assess the effectiveness of haptic feedback in tablet-based learning. Results will contribute new knowledge of (1) how to design educational media leveraging surface haptic displays and (2) the conditions under which this technology effectively promotes learning and engagement among young children. The PIs will make the developed applications openly available for use by other researchers and disseminate our results through interdisciplinary venues in children's media and development, human-computer interaction, and engineering of haptic technology. Project web site (http://preschoolhaptics.soc.northwestern.edu/) will provide information on the project and access to privacy-protected experimental data and software artifacts.