Hello everyone. This is Xuewang Geng, a D3 student.
I would like to introduce a paper I read for this week’s English seminar.
Below is a summary of the paper’s content.

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Paper Title: Teaching thermodynamics with augmented interaction and learning analytics
Journal: Computers & Education
Volume/Issue/Pages: 196, 1-13
Year of Publication: 2023
Authors: Wanli Xing, Xudong Huang, Chenglu Li, Charles Xie

Knowledge regarding heat and temperature in thermodynamics is closely related to daily life experiences and is one of the learning items that must be mastered at the K-12 level. However, previous studies have shown that students often understand heat and temperature as having similar meanings. In particular, it has been pointed out that some students perceive heat not as a theoretical concept representing the transfer of energy between objects of different temperatures, but as a type of substance that exists within an object and can move from one object to another. Furthermore, although students learn that the initial temperature of an object reaches thermal equilibrium with the ambient temperature, they tend to understand the temperature of objects based on their own intuition.

Concreteness Fading Theory (Fyfe et al., 2014) is an approach often used in learning scientific concepts. It is suggested that by transitioning from a physical representation of a concept to an iconic representation, and then to an abstract representation, one can gradually remove the concreteness of the concept, which is expected to promote both learning and its transfer. Physical materials provide a practical context that activates real-world knowledge and induces physical actions to deepen memory and understanding. On the other hand, the use of abstract materials eliminates unnecessary perceptual information, encourages the utilization and generalization of knowledge learned in other contexts, and allows students to understand the structural and representational aspects rather than the superficial features of the knowledge. The authors designed and developed an AR learning support tool that integrates physical experiments and virtual infrared image analysis tools based on Concreteness Fading Theory to promote the understanding of thermodynamic concepts.

Therefore, in this study, the learning of heat and temperature concepts was designed based on Concreteness Fading Theory with the following three stages:
・Enactive (action-based) stage: Students form physical conceptual models of temperature and heat using physical materials (rulers) through the infrared camera of the AR analysis tool.
・Iconic (image-based) stage: Students utilize thermal images and observe color heat maps to grasp temperature differences visually.
・Symbolic (notation-based) stage: Students understand and compare temperature change trends by quantifying the temperature of materials using time-series (temperature over time) graphs.

In addition, in this study, since the developed AR learning tool requires both physical interaction (manipulation of materials) and virtual interaction (use of data visualization and analysis by the AR tool), it involves multitasking during learning, which may increase cognitive load and affect learning. Therefore, the authors compared and investigated two versions of the AR tool: concurrent multitasking and sequential multitasking, in terms of tool usage and conceptual understanding.

Two investigations were conducted targeting ninth-grade students in the United States. Specifically, in the first investigation, 111 students used the concurrent multitasking AR tool, while in the second investigation, 132 students from a different school used the sequential multitasking AR tool. In the activities, a warm-up and system tutorial were held on the first day. From the second to the fifth day, experiments on four heat concepts were conducted. In the experiments, students were asked to place their two thumbs on metal and wooden rulers for one minute and observe the temperature difference between the ruler and their thumbs. After the experiments, students created experimental reports and answered questionnaire items. With the concurrent multitasking AR tool, students analyzed only the data collected by the thermal images (pixel-level temperature) in real-time. If the thermal image connection was lost or the system shut down, students could not re-analyze the observed thermal phenomena. With the sequential multitasking AR tool, the thermal images being observed were automatically recorded. After observation, students could re-watch the recorded videos and captured temperature data for analysis. The analysis used log data from the AR tool, experimental reports, and responses to questionnaire items.

As a result of the analysis, it was found that students using the sequential multitasking design had a statistically significantly higher number of experimental trials than those using the concurrent design. Furthermore, although the post-test scores were higher than the pre-test scores in both investigations, it was confirmed that the use of the sequential multitasking AR tool promoted the understanding of heat and temperature concepts with statistical significance at the 0.05 level. In the first investigation, because of the concurrent multitasking design, observation was performed simultaneously with experimental manipulation, suggesting that cognitive load was high and it was difficult to obtain accurate information. In contrast, in the second investigation, since re-analysis was possible even after observation, it is considered that more time was secured for reflection, leading to improved post-test responses. Also, from the analysis of the experimental reports, it was found that students used thermal images and time-series data to interpret heat moving in a specific direction. This indicates that the AR tool, which utilizes Concreteness Fading Theory consisting of physical experiences of touching materials, observation of image-based thermal images, and abstract representations such as time-series graphs of heat and temperature, improved students’ conceptual understanding.

Below are my thoughts. I think the development of an AR system utilizing Concreteness Fading Theory is very informative. In particular, I consider it a novel idea that the AR system plays the role of creating a connection between concrete representations and abstract symbols during the process of transitioning from concrete events of a concept to more abstract representations. Furthermore, regarding the problem often recognized in traditional text-based learning where it is difficult to transfer learning to daily life, the Concreteness Fading Theory addressed in this paper might be one of the solutions. I believe that learners who have experienced the concreteness fading process can easily transfer the knowledge and conceptual understanding gained from concrete materials back to their daily lives, which are rich in concreteness. However, I think there are also limitations to Concreteness Fading Theory. I felt that depending on the concrete events selected, concepts might not be extracted, conceptual understanding might be narrowed, or misconceptions might be brought about. I feel there is a need to carefully consider what kind of concrete events to provide to learners. Also, I am very curious about how the multitasking design in this paper affected cognitive load.