Enhancing Learning and Engagement Through Full-Body Interactions With an Immersive Science Simulation

• In Event: 26.024 - Collaborative Engagement and Science Learning via Technology

Abstract

Computer simulations have been shown to be effective instruments for teaching students about difficult concepts, particularly in STEM disciplines. Emerging interface technologies are expanding the modalities which learners interact with these simulations, but the effects of these new interactions on conceptual understanding and student engagement have not been examined in great depth. We present here a study where middle-school students learned about gravity and planetary motion in an immersive, full-body interactive simulation, and we compared their learning and attitudes about science with students using a desktop version of the same simulation. Results of the study indicate that enacting concepts and experiencing critical ideas in physics through whole-body activity leads to significant cognitive learning gains and more positive attitudes towards science.

Authors

• Robb Lindgren, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Michael Tscholl, Northern Illinois University

• Shuai Wang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Emily Kuzneski Johnson, University of Central Florida