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Learning analytics, referring to the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts in order to optimize learning and the environments in which it occurs, is proving to be a powerful approach for understanding and improving science learning. However, few studies focused on leveraging learning analytics to assess hands-on laboratory skills in K-12 science classrooms. This study demonstrated the feasibility of gauging laboratory skills based on students’ process data logged by a mobile augmented reality (AR) application for conducting science experiments. Students can use the mobile AR technology to investigate a variety of science phenomena that involve concepts central to physics understanding. Seventy-two students from a suburban middle school in the Northeastern United States participated in this study. They conducted experiments in pairs. Mining process data using Bayesian networks showed that most students who participated in this study demonstrated some degree of proficiency in laboratory skills. Also, findings indicated a positive correlation between laboratory skills and conceptual learning. The results suggested that learning analytics provides a possible solution to measure hands-on laboratory learning in real-time and at scale.
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Augmented Reality in Science Laboratories: Investigating High School Students’ Navigation Patterns and Their Effects on Learning Performance
Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to fundamentally transform science education by making learning of abstract science ideas tangible and engaging. However, little is known about how students interacted with AR technologies and how these interactions may affect learning performance in science laboratories. This study examined high school students’ navigation patterns and science learning with a mobile AR technology, developed by the research team, in laboratory settings. The AR technology allows students to conduct hands-on laboratory experiments and interactively explore various science phenomena covering biology, chemistry, and physics concepts. In this study, seventy ninth-grade students carried out science laboratory experiments in pairs to learn thermodynamics. Our cluster analysis identified two groups of students, which differed significantly in navigation length and breadth. The two groups demonstrated unique navigation patterns that revealed students’ various ways of observing, describing, exploring, and evaluating science phenomena. These navigation patterns were associated with learning performance as measured by scores on lab reports. The results suggested the need for providing access to multiple representations and different types of interactions with these representations to support effective science learning as well as designing representations and connections between representations to cultivate scientific reasoning skills and nuanced understanding of scientific processes.
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- PAR ID:
- 10284428
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Educational Computing Research
- ISSN:
- 0735-6331
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 073563312110387
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331211038764
