A prior study showed that students best
make predictions about the outco
me of opening a valve between two flasks containing a fluid or vacuu
m when they view both a de
monstration video and a particulate ani
mation, but the study showed no influence fro
m the order in which these visualizations were used. The purpose of this current research was to study the effect of the order of visualization on students鈥?particulate-level explanations. For this study, first-year general che
mistry students in a south-central university in the United States were asked to choose, or type in their own explanations, for three experi
ments involving diffusion鈥揺ffusion. Student ability to focus on particulate explanations was investigated after viewing either a
macroscopic de
monstration or an ani
mated particle view. Students were directed to a Web site where they received one of two rando
mly assigned treat
ments. One group of students was shown the particulate ani
mation first, followed by the
macroscopic de
monstration. For the other group, the order was reversed. Student explanations were assessed after each view. Finally, both groups were shown a side-by-side view of the ani
mation and de
monstration and their explanation was assessed one final ti
me. Results showed that the order of visualizations did
make a difference, with the
macroscopic view followed by the particle view yielding significantly
more particulate explanations.
Keywords:
mical+Education+Research&qsSearchArea=searchText">Chemical Education Research; First-Year Undergraduate/General; Learning Theories