Shima Salehi
Bertrand Schneider
Paulo Blikstein
ABSTRACT
In this study we investigated the effects of using physical manipulatives (PM) and virtual manipulatives (VM) on students' understanding of electronics. In our experiment, all participants completed two similar tasks, one with a tangible toolkit and another with a computer simulation. Both systems shared the same functionalities. Half of the participants first worked with a physical manipulative and then virtual simulation, while the rest did the opposite sequence. Our findings suggest that working with physical manipulatives might improve significantly learning gains compared to a computer simulation. Additionally, users who first worked with the physical manipulatives and then the virtual environment scored higher on the final post-test compared to participants who completed the same activities in the reverse order. This difference, however, did not reach statistical significance.
Supplemental Material
Available for Download
Zip file containing a PDF of the Accompanying Poster
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Index Terms
- The effects of physical and virtual manipulatives on learning basic concepts in electronics
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