Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics Education
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Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics Education A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Derek Alexander Muller School of Physics University of Sydney Australia 2008 Dedicated to all the great teachers who instilled in me the joy of learning, my parents, sisters, and especially Jane. Declaration of originality To the best of my knowledge, this thesis contains no copy or paraphrase of work published by another person, except where duly acknowledged in the text. This thesis contains no material which has been previously presented for a degree at the University of Sydney or any other university. Derek Alexander Muller ii Included papers and attribution The following refereed papers and presentations arose from work related to this thesis. Chapter 1 The future of multimedia learning: Essential issues for re- search D.A. Muller, J. Eklund, & M.D. Sharma Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education, Sydney, 2005. Chapter 4 Determining the factors affecting student perceptions of a popular science video D.A. Muller & M.D. Sharma Published in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technol- ogy, 21(4), 2005, pp.491–509. Video physics education: Falling cats and terminal velocity D.A. Muller & M.D. Sharma Paper presented at The Australian Institute of Physics, Can- berra, 2005. Chapter 5 Inside the quantum mechanics lecture: Changing practices D.A. Muller Paper presented at The Higher Education Research and Devel- opment Society of Australasia, Sydney, 2005. iii Chapter 6 Student conceptions of quantum tunneling D.A. Muller and M.D. Sharma Paper presented at the International Conference on Physics Ed- ucation, New Delhi, 2005. Chapter 8 Conceptual change through vicarious learning in an au- thentic physics setting D.A. Muller, M.D. Sharma, J. Eklund, & P. Reimann Published in Instructional Science, 35(6), 2007, pp.519–533. Starting a dialogue: The potential of vicarious learning D.A. Muller, M.D. Sharma, P. Reimann, & J. Eklund Presented at The American Association of Physics Teachers, Anchorage, 2006. Chapter 9 Changing conceptions in E-learning: Debates and dia- logues D.A. Muller & J. Eklund Paper presented at The World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, Honolulu, 2006. Saying the wrong thing: Improving learning with multime- dia by including misconceptions D.A. Muller, J. Bewes, M.D. Sharma, & P. Reimann Published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 2007. Chapter 10 Improving multimedia with alternative conceptions D.A. Muller & J. Eklund Paper presented at The International Conference on Informa- tion Communication Technologies in Education, Crete, 2007. Raising cognitive load with linear multimedia to promote conceptual change D.A. Muller, M.D. Sharma, & P. Reimann Published in Science Education, 2007. iv Chapter 11 Tackling misconceptions in introductory physics using multimedia presentations D.A. Muller and M.D. Sharma Paper presented at the Uniserve Science Conference, Sydney, 2007. v Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the efforts of my supervisor, Manju Sharma. Her unwavering enthusiasm kept my spirits up and encouraged me to develop and realize my research goals. She is a uniquely gifted researcher and educator because of her passion for physics and, most of all, her genuine concern for others. I am greatly indebted to my co-supervisors in education and industry. Peter Reimann has provided critical insight and timely resources to propel my searches and anal- yses. John Eklund has brought a very worthwhile different perspective from the industry sector. His presentations of our work have also broadened the scope and accessibility of our research. To the rest of the SUPER group: Ian Johnston, Ian Sefton, and Brian McInnes, thanks for your suggestions, time, and support. You represent a wealth of knowl- edge and one of the greatest assets to physics education in Australia. This thesis would also have been impossible without the technical contributions from friends. Cyrus deserves more rewards for the countless hours he spent devel- oping the web testing interface than I even promised. Thanks to Shelly for filming, and Jacqui, Emily, James and Kester for lending your acting talents to this project. The students in the School of Physics have made this time very enjoyable. Thanks to Luke for being such a tolerant house and office mate when my forgetful habits bordered on the infuriating. Sacha has graciously endured many hours of tennis and debates on education and everything else. Jacqui, your support and keen editor’s eye have been invaluable to my pursuit. To my office mates, Christine, Michelle, and Roberto, you will have to maintain our reputation as the hardest working office in physics. Indoor soccer has been a memorable experience with Alberto, Alex, vi Phil, Jong Won, Eddie, Iver, Dinko, Rob, and the rest of the Physicists crew. I think one of my greatest fortunes is being blessed with a family that has supported me in all my endeavors even when that meant traveling thousands of miles to live on a different continent. Though we are often separated by great distances, I hold you very close to my heart and I appreciate that your love gives me the freedom to explore the world. This work was supported by the Australian Postgraduate Award Scheme and the Australian Research Council. vii Abstract This thesis summarizes a series of investigations into how multimedia can be designed to promote the learning of physics. The ‘design experiment’ methodology was adopted for the study, incorporating different methods of data collection and iterated cycles of design, evaluation, and redesign. Recently much research has been conducted on learning with multimedia, usu- ally from a cognitive science perspective. Principles of design developed in this way have not often been tested in naturalistic settings, however. Therefore in one preliminary investigation students’ perceptions of a popular science video were investigated. Opinions aligned well with most principles though areas for further research were identified. In order to understand the challenges and opportunities presented by physics teaching, a survey of all lecture courses on the topic of quantum mechanics was undertaken. The lectures were a sophisticated form of multimedia, however inter- activity in all lectures was low. The learning that results from this teaching was evaluated using a questionnaire on quantum tunneling, a key quantum mechanical phenomenon. The survey re- vealed that students had many alternative conceptions on the topic and that these could be grouped into a small number of alternative answers. This finding is similar to many of the findings from science education over the past three decades. Using this background, two multimedia treatments were developed to teach the topic of quantum tunneling. One consisted of a lecture-style explanation with only correct information presented. The other took the form of a dialogue between a tutor and student, involving several of the common alternative conceptions. Students who saw the Dialogue performed significantly better on the post-test than those who saw viii the Exposition. In order to generalize the findings, four multimedia treatments on Newton’s first and second laws were created and evaluated in a similar way. A refutationary treat- ment, in which alternative conceptions were stated and refuted by a single speaker, and an Extended Exposition treatment were evaluated in addition to the Dialogue and Exposition. The Dialogue and Refutation outperformed the two expository treatments, confirming the benefits of including alternative conceptions. In a third iteration of the design experiment, four Newtonian mechanics treat- ments were evaluated with a new cohort of students. The Extended Exposition was replaced by a Worked Examples treatment in which important details were repeated to solve numerical problems. Cognitive load was directly measured in this exper- iment. Results showed that treatments containing alternative conceptions involved higher cognitive load and resulted in higher post-test scores than the other treat- ments. ix Contents 1 Framing the study 1 1.1 The rise of multimedia . 2 1.2 The research that wasn’t there . 4 1.2.1 Technology: The obvious solution to our problems . 6 1.2.2 Is this medium better than the other one? . 7 1.2.3 Implementing technology in schools . 9 1.2.4 How do learner’s learn? . 11 1.3 The equivalence principle . 11 1.4 Conclusion . 13 1.5 Advance organizer . 15 2 Methodology 17 2.1 Design experiments . 17 2.2 Thesis overview . 20 2.2.1 Multimedia in theory . 20 2.2.2 Multimedia in practice . 23 2.2.3 Quantum mechanics teaching . 24 2.2.4 Quantum mechanics learning . 25 2.2.5 Learning theories . 26 2.2.6 Quantum mechanics multimedia . 28 x 2.2.7 Newtonian mechanics multimedia . 29 2.2.8 Newtonian mechanics multimedia: Second iteration . 30 2.3 Application of the design experiment methodology . 32 3 Multimedia in theory 35 3.1 The structure of human memory . 35 3.2 Learning without being overwhelmed . 37 3.2.1 Measuring cognitive load . 42 3.3 Learning from words and pictures . 43 3.3.1 The cognitive theory of multimedia learning . 47 4 Multimedia in practice 51 4.1 Method . 52 4.2 Results and analysis . 55 4.2.1 Learning . 56 4.2.2 Perceptions of multimedia design . 59 4.3 Discussion . 71 5 Quantum mechanics teaching 74 5.1 Introduction . 75 5.2 Method . 77 5.3 Results . 79 5.3.1 Key themes . 83 5.4 Discussion . 90 6 Quantum mechanics learning 92 6.1 Previous research on quantum tunneling . 93 6.2 Method . 98 6.2.1 Questionnaire . 98 xi 6.2.2 Procedure . 100 6.3 Results and analysis . 101 6.3.1 Energy . 101 6.3.2 Wave functions . 103 6.3.3 Probability density . 106 6.3.4 Changing barrier parameters .