Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2000

Learning contexts -Does multimedia affect physics learning?

Yvonne Wærn*, Patric Dahlqvist# & Robert Ramberg#*Department of Communication Studies,

Linköping Universityyvonne.waern@tema.liu.se

# Department of Computer and Systems SciencesStockholm University/KTH{patricd,robban}@dsv.su.se

AbstractThis paper proposes that several contexts influence stu-dents' learning: the institutional, the learning materialas well as personal experiences evoked by the tasks. Wemade a study of the effect of abstract, static and dynamicillustrations coupled to a text concerning the principle ofequivalence. Students in a university physics course ex-plained their reasoning in tasks that might be answeredfrom common sense reasoning, memory of the learningmaterial, textbook knowledge or a combination of these.We found that students in all groups used textbook lan-guage in their explanations, which is an evidence of thecontext of the physics class. Common sense explanationswere more common in the group given concrete illustra-tions. This indicates that the particular learning experi-ence has some effect. Contradictory everyday experiencewas often introduced in the explanations and seemed toinhibit the understanding of the principle taught.

1. Theoretical distinctions related to learningfrom multimedia

When designers of multimedia systems for educationsearch advice from educational researchers, they currentlyget stuck in a morass of conflicting ideas. We have firstthe conflict between different schools recommendingdifferent units of analysis. One proposes that individualmental models should be studied, another that communi-cation practices have to be considered [16]. Other con-flicts relate to conceptions of learning, which might varybetween situated versus principle learning (Brown, Collinsand Duguid, [2] vs Anderson, Reder and Simon, [1]) orconstructionist (Kafai, and Resnick, [10]) vs constructivistlearning principles (Duffy and Jonassen, [6], Fosnot, [8],Jonassen, [9]). We propose that learning is such a complextopic that we have to proceed with great caution and not

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get stuck in contemplating too long the variousunderlying assumptions. The scientific practice of divideand conquer will here be proposed. Although manycurrent educational researchers may find this unfeasiblewith respect to the complexity of the learning and educa-tional system, we hold that it is quite possible to find somesubsystem which is quasi decomposable from the totalcomplexity. Our subsystem will concern the interactionsbetween external presentations and internal reflections.We will investigate how various students take what isdemonstrated and what is asked for as possible inputs to areasoning which at best builds a bridge between the two,at worst just leaves the student nowhere.

1.1. Current controversies in learning and edu-cation

But first, we shall present our own relationship to cur-rent reasoning in learning in general and support oflearning via computers in particular. Ideas of learning andeducation can be regarded to vary with respect to at leasttwo dimensions. One dimension is related to regardinglearning as reception versus construction, the other di-mension is related to looking at the individual versus thesocial aspect of learning. Although we ourselves belongto the school of constructive and social learning, this doesnot mean that we propose that all environments forlearning have to be designed in a constructive and socialway. Instead, we hold that even a straightforward instruc-tion without any constructive aspects will need a con-structive approach by a learner. The interpretation of anymessage is always in the mind of the reader. It might behold that students will be more motivated when they haveto search for knowledge themselves than when only beingtold. However, this is a truth with many modifications.Certainly, students who would be asked to reveal the gen-eral law of relativity quite by themselves would be at a

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Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2000

loss and lose motivation. Somewhere, the students willhave to be shown something.

It is the question of showing which concerns us - howdo various means of showing impact reasoning? However,showing is not enough, as is shown by a study by Säljöand Bergqvist [17]. Here it was found that to understandthe behavior of light, students have to have access toelements of a theory of light that highlights significantaspects of the phenomena according to a particular per-spective. The conclusion is that ”seeing in the sense ofidentifying something that is culturally and contextuallysignificant is a socio-cultural process that relies on discur-sive resources” [17, p. 385].

What further factors/processes have to be considered?The second issue relates to individual versus sociallearning. We firmly believe that all learning takes place in asocial context and that learners are sometimes quite awareof what this context demands. At the same time, learnersare individuals, and they ”appropriate" their experiences indifferent ways (cf [20]). This means that when students aregiven access to a theory they will also use their owncontexts in order to reach understanding. Theories are ofcourse created and sustained in a social context [18],however, the individual aspect of learning andunderstanding cannot be put aside. We want to inves-tigate the interaction between individual appropriation andsocial context.

1.2. Our approach to research in learning andeducation

We want to point to distinctions such as showing ver-sus seeing, proposing versus reflecting and indirectversus direct evidence. Multimedia is about showing,proposing and giving indirect evidence. The learner sees,interprets, reflects and seeks for direct evidence and linksthe resulting experiences to prior knowledge as well as thematerial presented. If the link is constructed according toinstitutionally (scholarly) established norms the result willbe called school learning. It should be noted that the in-stitution almost always is regarding some interpretationsas more valid than others. If the interpretations are notvalid according to the institutional norms, the result will bea failure. We hold that the learner will always learnsomething, although we cannot always detect what theylearn.

In this particular study we want to investigate whatlearners experience from various attempts at affecting aconceptual change. Many investigations have been per-formed on this particular topic, and various theories havebeen put forward as to the difficulty of conceptual change(cf [3, 19]). Interestingly enough, these theories work withconceptual change as an internal, individual conceptualprocess. No reference is given to the effect of external

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upport, such as perceptual support in terms of images,ensory support in terms of concrete objects or kineticupport in terms of moving environments. The role of thexternal environment has mostly been related to images,nd we’ll stick there for this paper.

Although most education is replete with images, iteems to be difficult to show the value of images in humanearning in general [13, 21], or in conceptual change inarticular. However, early studies with an anecdotal oriographical approach support the idea that images arendeed crucial for conceptual change, i.e. such related toreativity. Many ideas which have run counter to priorstablished conceptions, such as Einstein’s ideas aboutelativity, Woodward´s idea about growth and reproduc-ion and Kekule´s conception of the benzine ring haveeen reported as being related to images [5]. Several edu-ational researchers have suggested that educationhould be based on concrete experiences, where imagesorm a part. Currently, there is no question of whether orot to use images any longer. Instead we should askurselves: ”which" images, ”when”, "how" and, of course,why".

These types of questions have of course been askedefore, for instance by [16]. He pointed out that it is notelf-evident that providing an expert mental model woulde the best way of getting students to understandoncepts from mechanics. Although he did not approachhe issue of the nature of an image given, he presentsome discussion as to what kind of representation woulde beneficial for understanding the acknowledged difficultoncept of speed and acceleration.

Most studies that have had difficulties showing posi-ive results of learning from or with images have used auantitative approach. The same is true of studies thatave shown no or little transfer from one environmentnotably the school) to another (notably the world outsidef the school) as was pointed out by Lave, [12]. However,uantitative studies require an idea of ”measurement” andmeasurement error”. They also require that we can con-rol the independent variables. As to education, however,e can only control the presentation but not the

eception, we can only show how things work, but wehould not expect that students conceptions at onceatch our demonstrations. Further, we have very feweasurements of understanding or conceptual change

hat we agree upon. The best ideas of design or revisingesign are based upon case studies or ”lessons”, notuantitative data. Thus, we’ll here mainly work withualitative data in our analysis of what students tell aboutheir own ideas.

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Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2000

1.3. Our focus

We propose that any study of learning has to considerthe learning environment, such as expectations "in thewalls" as well as the experimenter's expectations and thelearning material to be studied. This is particularly the caseif we want to study the effect of various computersupports. Our focus will be on looking at relationshipsbetween the social environment in which students areplaced, their own prior knowledge as well as a particularlearning experience when it comes to their own explainingof answers to "school" questions.

The idea of "learning" and "making sense" has to beconsidered carefully. In most studies, tests consist ofquestions made up by the teacher. It is not always madeclear how the test relates to the material to be learnt, to thestudents' prior knowledge etc. We know that tests make abig difference in terms of how students learn. Therefore,we chose a systematic approach to test construction. Wechose the following categories, where the construction ofthe test per se of course is intuitive:

The questions do not require more than a relating ofthe material presented ("memory" questions).

The questions require some minor transformation of thematerial presented ("interpretation" questions).

The questions require an advanced reasoning from thematerial learnt to a new situation ("reasoning" questions).

The students we investigate are first year universitystudents, and the learning concerns a particular physicsconcept, called "the principle of equivalence", belongingto the domain of mechanics in Newtonian Physics. Ourinterest lies in investigating if different illustrations affectstudents' interpretations of this concept. In particular, wewant to see how students make sense of abstract graphs(related to textbook terminology), static illustrations anddynamic illustrations (related to everyday concepts).

To catch students' interpretations in the particularsituation they are placed, we asked them not only to an-swer questions but also to explain their answers in writtenform. Thus, our method tried to catch some of students'self reflections on their process of answering a questionrelated to something they had learnt. It is not taken forgranted that the explanations reflect what students actu-ally know about the domain. We may only say that theexplanations reflect what the students wish to tell us in theparticular situation. Thus, explanations reflect theirexpectations on us as researchers as well as their ideasabout the issues talked about. They will also of courseshow their motivation to write anything at all.

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. Method

.1. Subjects

As subjects served 55 university students in physics.hey were all familiar with the use of computers. Their agearied between 19 and 47 years, and there were 38 malesnd 17 females. All volunteered and were given aandwich for their participation, after the study. The prin-iple of equivalence was part of the curriculum for theourse they attended during the period of the study. Thetudy was conducted before the course agenda started toover the principle of equivalence.

.2. Design of the study

The students were randomly allotted to one of threeonditions: one abstract, one static, and one dynamic.hese conditions correspond to the type of material given

o the subjects (see below). There were 19 subjects in thebstract condition, 18 subjects in the static condition and8 subjects in the dynamic condition.

.3. Material.

Four different kinds of computer based learning mate-ial were prepared:

1. One general description/explanation was givento all students. This was textual and the subjectswere allowed to read through as much of the textas they wanted to and as long as they wanted. Thelanguage used was both related to traditionalphysics and more everyday situations. This textwas accompanied by an illustration correspondingto each condition. (The full text is given in the ap-pendix).

2. The abstract condition. One abstract illustrationwas based upon a common notion in physics, i.e. avector diagram for illustrating forces. (One graph isgiven in the appendix)

3. The static condition. Static illustrations showedhow a helium balloon would relate to a railway cartin acceleration (positive and negative respec-tively). (One picture is given in the appendix)

4. The dynamic condition. Dynamic illustrationsshowed a helium balloon as it moved with therailway cart during acceleration (positive andnegative respectively). (A sequence of the samepictures as in the static conditions, however, themovements of the balloon and the steel ball re-spectively are clearly shown while the car is ac-celerating and slowing down).

For the test, seven different items were prepared. Sincethe sequence of questions might matter for the answers,we made half of the subjects answer the questions in the

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Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2000

numerical order 1 to 7 (see below for the actual questions)and the other half got the questions in the order1,2,5,6,7,3,4. All items were accompanied by pictures, andthe answers were multiple-choice (also including pictures).

It should be noted that an award-winning universityteacher in physics prepared the learning materials as wellas the test materials. His passion is to try to make studentsunderstand by linking physics concepts to the everydayworld.

The following were the questions used:1. Imagine a disc on which grass is sown. In what di-

rection will the grass slant if it grows when the discrotates (with constant angle speed).(pictures with grass directed towards the middle,outwards or straight up, the correct answer isgiven in the appendix).

2. Imagine a disc on which grass is sown. In what di-rection will the grass slant if it grows when the discis fix.(The same pictures as for question 1 wereused)

3. A particle with the mass m is in a co-ordinatesystem that accelerates to the right (-->) with con-stant acceleration A. Which of the representationsbelow describes the conditions between the forcesinvolved best? (Pictures similar to the learningmaterial were used, see the abstract illustration inappendix)

4. A particle with the mass m is in a co-ordinatesystem that accelerates to the left (<--) with con-stant acceleration A. Which of the representationsbelow describes the conditions between the forcesinvolved best? (The same alternative pictures asfor question 3 were used).

5. A helium balloon is placed in a railway cart, at-tached to the floor. The cart moves at the right andaccelerates. In which direction will the balloonhang?(Pictures similar to the concrete illustration wereused, with the balloon (and the steel ball turningeither rightwards, leftwards or straight upwards).

6. A balloon is placed in a railway cart, hanging fromthe floor. The cart moves at the right and appliesits breaks. In which direction will the balloonhang? (The same alternative pictures as for ques-tion 5 were used)

7. A balloon is placed in a railway cart, hanging fromthe floor. The cart moves at the right with constantspeed. In which direction will the balloon hang?(The same alternative pictures as for question 5were used)

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2.4. Procedure

The study took place in one empty classroom in theDepartment of Physics. Students were placed in the frontof a computer and were asked to go through the learningmaterial at their own pace. After this they were asked to gothrough the questions one by one. Every question wasplaced on one page on the screen and it was not possibleto go back and change the answers. The students wereasked to explain their answers by typing into the computeras well as rate their confidence in their answers and thedifficulty of the question (also administered via thecomputer). When the students were finished, they wereallowed to leave the room. The experiment took between20 to 50 minutes to finish.

2.5. Expectations

Our expectations are that the various conditions wouldgive the subjects different bases for their explanations.The abstract illustration would make the students moreinclined to think that a formulation related to physics isexpected from them. Therefore, students in this group areexpected to use a textbook language in their explanations,according to our previous studies [11]. Further, this con-dition does not give the students any other immediatebase on which to base their explanations. They may thushave to work harder with finding explanations for phe-nomena outside of the physics laboratory, i.e. those pre-sented as related to "real world" phenomena. Thestudents who read the static and the dynamic illustrationson the other hand have got both the physics world (fromtheir physics studies) and the "real" world (theillustrations) in the same context and now have to combinethem. Although the concrete illustrations may be expectedto help them with constructing a conception to bridgethese worlds, there is still a construction to be made. Thequestions requiring reflection are the ones that will showhow the groups could take their respective knowledge andbuild them into a "story". It is thus supposed that the ab-stract group would have a story where the elementsmostly are taken from the textbook language, whereas theconcrete and the dynamic groups should be able to makeup a story with real life elements as well.

3. Results

Here we will concentrate on analyzing the explanationsfor the answers that the students chose. The frequenciesof right and wrong answers as well as the ratings are re-ported in [4].

Since the students wrote down all explanations, we justprinted these out for further processing. We found thatthe explanations could be classified into five categories.One category is clearly related to using a textbook

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Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2000

terminology, another tells a concrete/common sense story.A third is a combination of both, whereas a fourth relatesto a memory of what was presented in the learning phase.Finally, we have no explanations at all.

Examples of the categorization will be given followingthe tables.

3.1. Quantitative analysis

Before going into details of some of the more inter-esting explanations, let us present a tallying of frequenciesin the different categories and experimental groups. Tables1-4 give an overview of these kinds of data for questions1, 2, 3 and 5. The remaining questions are less interesting,since they represent a repetition of the earlier ones, andthe subjects gave less detailed explanations to these.

We do not want to make any statistical analyses ofthese figures, by several reasons. First, the groups havenot been made equivalent in terms of prior knowledge.Second, the explanations given vary in linguistic quality,depending on that some students are not native Swedishspeakers. Thirdly, the questions are not independent ofone another and the tables should thus not be tested inde-pendently. However, we make some suggestions on basisof the frequency counts in relation to each of the tables.

Table 1. Frequencies of explanations in variouscategories for the different experimentalconditions. Question 1: Rotating disc

Text-book

Con-crete

Both Me-mory

No ex-planation

Abstract 11 3 3 2Static 8 1 3 5Dynamic 14 3 1 0

The groups differ in terms of how many students re-fused to give an explanation. In the dynamic group eve-rybody tried to give an explanation, whereas in the staticgroup, several students refused to. The task is both visualand dynamic, and it is possible that students in the dy-namic group felt freer in suggesting explanations.

Here are some examples of the answers in the variouscategories for this question:

Concrete/common sense:1. The grass grows towards the sun. But the wind willbend it. (Subject from abstract group)

Textbook terminology2. Since the speed is perpendicular to the radius, thegrass will bend out from the center of the disc. (Subjectfrom abstract group)3. The centripetal force (Subject from concrete group)4. The force that affects the grass in their rotation isdependent on the acceleration. The radial accelerationhas an inwards direction. The corliolic force, an imag-

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ned force, affects the grass outwards. F=-ma index r.Subject from concrete group)

oth textbook and common sense. The grass gets in the very beginning a speed that has tangential direction against the periphery of the disc,ut a centripetal force pulls in the root of the grass sohat the straw tends to bend. (Subject from abstractroup). The grass wants to grow in the same direction as atring with a weight in the acceleration field. Usuallyhis is perpendicular, but in this case the weight woulde thrown out from the center of the disc, which the grassould interpret as a normal gravitation field in theirection of the string against the weight. The grassould see the disc as a cone where the center is upwardsnd in common hills the grass grows upwards (I think).Subject from dynamic group).

It is interesting to note that at least some students inhe concrete and dynamic groups also master the textbookerminology well. (This does by no means mean that theyad more correct answers, as is shown by the quantitativeesults reported in [4].

What happens in the seemingly trivial question aboutrass growing on the fix disc? Table 2 gives the frequen-ies of the different categories of explanations.

able 2. Frequencies of explanations in variousategories for the different experimentalonditions. Question 2: Fix disc

Physics Con-crete

Both Me-mory

No ex-planation

bstract 10 4 2 3tatic 12 2 3ynamic 7 10 1

We find that the textbook terminology still dominates inhe abstract and static groups.

ome examples are the following:. There is no force working on the grass (Subject frombstract group). Opposite to the g-field (Subject from abstract group).. Speed =0,acc=0 F=0 (Subject from dynamic group)

It can thus be said that physics students think they areupposed to think and talk a “textbook language” when-ver the situation is related to physics. However, in com-arison to the dynamic question 1, the trivial question 2licits more concrete explanations from the students in theynamic group. Some examples are the following:0. My experience tells me that grass should growtraight up (dynamic group)1. I guess that it is natural for grass to grow straightp. (dynamic group)

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Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2000

12. It does not matter when the disc is still – compare alawn (dynamic group).

It may be the case that animations have the effect ofpermitting common sense reasoning.

What about the textbook related questions? Table 3gives the result for the first question requiring the stu-dents to explain the principle with the help of a vectordiagram.

Table 3. Frequencies of explanations in variouscategories for the different experimentalconditions. Question 3: Vectors

Physics Con-crete

Both Me-mory

No ex-planation

Abstract 11 2 6Static 11 0 7Dynamic 14 0 4

The figures in table 3 show that the students refused tocome up with explanations to a greater extent when thetask was related to a traditional physics problem. Mostexplanations given use textbook language, which wasexpected, since the given text related to vectors and wasphrased in this language. However, we also find that thestudents in the dynamics group are the ones who use text-book language to the greatest extent, which was not ex-pected.

Examples of explanations:13. The mass is affected by a force at the right, depend-ent on A and a force downward, dependent on g.(subjectfrom dynamic group)14. The acceleration is in the same direction as theforce (subject from abstract group)15. Acceleration rightwards, gravitation downwards,the third should be the resultant. (subject from concretegroup)

Finally, let us see the results concerning the questionthat related everyday concepts to physical ones.

Table 4. Frequencies of explanations in variouscategories for the different experimental condi-tions. Question 5: Balloon in accelerating car

Text-book

Con-crete

Both Mem-ory

No expla-nation

Abstract 7 7 2 1 2Static 5 2 2 6 3Dynamic 3 3 3 9 0

Here we see that the students in the static and the dy-namic groups to a great extent use their memories of theprevious illustrations in their explanations. This is shownin explanations as the following:16. I learnt that at the beginning! (Subject from dynamicgroup)

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17. I have a certain memory that we got that kind of in-formation in the beginning. (Subject from dynamic group)

However, if they have not seen the picture, their mem-ory may be a little less explainable:18. This was said in the instruction, I do not understandwhy (Subject from abstract group).

Also concerning this question, textbook language maybe used in the explanations as in the following examples:

Textbook language:19. The inertia in opposite direction to the accelerationvector (subject from concrete group)20. The sant of the line of the balloon is parallel to g'(subject from abstract group)

It is also interesting that some students make up theirown, reasonable concrete explanation:21. The air is getting "packed" in the left hand side ofthe car (subject from abstract group)

The physics teacher does not approve of this answer.The physical experience is evidenced by the following

explanation:22. If I am sitting in a car, I will be pressed against theback.(subject from abstract group)

The figures in table 4 indicate that some of the studentsin the abstract condition still stick to the textbooklanguage. However, figures as well as explanations alsoshow that it is possible for the students in the abstractcondition to construct a concrete story when the task isrelated to the real world.

Further analyses of written explanations.Now, what can these qualitative data about students'

explanations tell us about learning in a learning commu-nity? First, we want to stress that although our data con-cern individual learning and testing, we see strong effectsof the social environment in the students' explanations. Inthis case there are two such traces to be found: 1) thetextbook terminology, 2) the learning material per se.

As to the physics terminology, we find in the explana-tions aspects that might reflect a course of learning, or atleast different aspects of physics learning.

Textbook terminologySome students used textbook terminology without any

further explanation. This may be due to laziness, but alsoto shallow knowledge.

Examples are the following (rotating grass):Centripetal force, Central force, centrifugal force, apical

dominance, constant angular speed.Comment: Of course, students acquire textbook termi-

nology. In some cases, they may start by learning thiswithout relating it to anything outside the classroom.

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Relation between conceptsThe second strategy of learning is related to relating

concepts to one another, but not to anything outside ofthe abstract physical realm. It is difficult to use thisstrategy on the concrete questions, but it abounds in theabstract questions.

Examples are the following (vectors):23. The mass is affected by a force that depends on A,and a force directed downwards, which depends on g.24. Acceleration A rightwards, thus opposing force left-wards.25. The force equation and Pythagoras' proposition26. The system accelerates rightward. In this system theparticle accelerates leftwards due to Newton's 1 st.

Comment: These explanations indicate a start of amastering the textbook concepts above learning theirnames.

Relation between expert concepts andeveryday ones

Finally, we find attempts to relate physics concepts andterminology to the world outside of the Department ofPhysics. Examples:

(Balloon in railway car):27. The resulting force in y-direction is directed up-wards. The balloon as got a mass and needs a force thatworks in the same direction as the car in order to movewith this. This force is the tension force of the string. Thecontrary force to the tension force is then directed up-wards to the left.28. It has its "gravity" opposite, which affects it to accel-erate in opposite direction to the system.

The relation to the real world is also found in one newanalogy, as in example 6 given above. The explanation iswell worth repeating:6.(repeated) The grass wants to grow in the same direc-tion as a string with a weight in the acceleration field.Usually this is perpendicular, but in this case the weightwould be thrown out from the center of the disc, whichthe grass would interpret as a normal gravitation field inthe direction of the string against the weight. The grasswould see the disc as a cone where the center is upwardsand in common hills the grass grows upwards (I think).

This subject had been submitted to the condition in-cluding dynamic illustrations. It is interesting to note thatthe explanation is based on an analogy, similar to the onesgiven by the teacher. The teacher himself does not re-member having given this analogy, and we may thereforesuppose that the student came up with the analogy him-self. Of course we cannot say why this student did so, norwhy he was the only one doing this creative leap. As westressed earlier, individual differences have to be consid-ered in learning and these may relate both to individuallearning and individual creativity.

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Contradictory experienceOften there is a conflict between what textbooks in

physics tell and what we feel ourselves. This is reflected inexplanations to many of the wrong answers:

Balloon in railway car:29. It is affected by the same force as I am in for instancean accelerating car.30. The balloon will move in the opposite direction tothe car. Imagine yourself sitting in a car. Then you arepressed against the back when the car accelerates.

This may even be used in the abstract question:Vector, question 3:

31. If you are situated in the accelerating system you'llfeel inertia.

3.2. Tentative conclusions from data

The tentative conclusions from data are that the stu-dents given abstract explanations still to some degreesucceed in reasoning in a concrete way and to build rela-tionships between the real world and the textbook termi-nology. We also find that

students given dynamic illustrations succeed in talkingin textbook terminology and that the students given staticillustrations succeed in using both textbook terminologyand dynamic terms in their own explanations.

Thus, we find that students have the ability to bridgegaps between the instructions they get and the tasks theyare posed. This conclusion has been drawn repeatedly invarious educational studies, so there is no big news in it.However, the data says something more as well. First wesee that there seems to be an interaction between thecontent and form of the illustrations and the explanationsgiven: a concrete form may lead to more concrete expla-nations, or to explanations that are more tied to the mate-rial provided. Second, there is no guarantee that an expertterminology implies a correct reasoning. Instead, the ter-minology might be a path to the reasoning of the commu-nity that might be tied to an abstract conceptual under-standing, bypassing the connection to reality. The mostdifficult path seems to be the one fostered by our teacher:trying to relate everyday experiences to physical con-cepts. Here, many of the students either did not under-stand or made out some stories of their own or tried tomemorize by heart.

4. Discussion

In the introduction we suggested that designers of acomputer support for learning must look further than tothe concrete situation where the support will be used.Therefore, a simple evaluation of the "learning" from asingle round of use of the computer support can neversatisfy us when we want to conclude anything about the

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usefulness of a support. The present study is a good illus-tration. We found tracks of all kinds of the presentationsof the equivalence principle. The presentation formatseems to have interacted with students' previous knowl-edge as well as their expectations on the learning and testsituation. We can thus not draw any firm conclusionsabout the usability of hypermedia for physics learning.

However, the students' explanations gave us some in-sights that may be useful. We therefore want to suggestsome approaches to the design of systems to supportlearning, not only based on this study, but also on recentreasoning within computer supported learning and educa-tion. The following overview (see Table 5) may be re-garded as a kind of task analysis of learning. In a naturalschool situation, most learning takes place in a complexenvironment, where various aspects of learning and de-sign are mixed. However, computer support has to bemuch more focused, and it may be fruitful to considersome design issues related to various learning aspects.

The findings of the present study, as well as a previousone by Karlgren & Ramberg [11] indicate that studentshave to learn a terminology related to domain relevantconcepts. As long as this is the case, a "shallow" learningof terms may be needed as well as a learning based uponunderstanding the relationship to everyday experiences.This suggests that it is not sufficient to create interactivelaboratories for simulating physical events in order tobridge the gap between everyday and textbook phenom-ena.

Another insight gained from this study is that there areseveral difficulties involved in linking expert terminologyand talk to everyday concepts. Contradictory experience isone of them. It is obvious that contradictory experiencecannot simply be displaced. Instead, an alternative con-ceptual framework is required. As we saw in this study,students may create such an alternative point of viewthemselves, a view that not always is the one desired bythe teacher.

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Table 5. Approaches to the design of systems tosupport learning

Learning aspects Design issues

Textbook terminol-ogy

Relate terminology to defi-nitions and examples

Physics conceptsrelated to one another

Graphs and formula areused to relate concepts to oneanother

Simulations may be used todeepen the understanding ofrelationships

Everyday conceptsrelated to physics con-cepts

Pictures and dynamic il-lustrations

Simulations of possibleoutcomes

Contradictory expe-rience

An alternative cognitivestarting point is required forinstance in terms of virtualreality. The student mightimagine her/himself being theparticle and experience the lawbeing demonstrated.

A third insight is related to the importance of a meta-context in which the interpretation of material is placed (cf[18]. The principle of equivalence places some particularborders around allowable interpretations that do not relateto all everyday experiences. The teacher's choice ofillustrations is one way of limiting the meta-context.However, the borders are certainly not perfectly clear to allstudents.

5. Acknowledgements

This study has been supported by a grant from theSwedish Board for Research in Humanities and SocialSciences to Yvonne Wærn. Patric Dahlquist has collectedthe data. The research group around Robert Ramberg inStockholm, in particular Klas Karlgren has been involvedin several phases and aspects of the work. We are alsoindebted to Gunnar Edvinsson for designing the materialand the questions and to our subjects for their patiencewith the study as such.

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6. References

[1] Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (1996). Situated Learning and Education. Educational Researcher, 25, 5-11.[2] Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, 18, 32-41.[3] Chi, M. T. H., Slotta, J. D., & Leeuw, N. (1994). From things to processes: A theory of conceptual change for learning science

concepts. Learning and Instruction., 22(1), 27-43.[4] Dahlqvist, Patric, Ramberg, Robert, & Wærn, Yvonne. (1999). The Effects of Different Presentation Formats on Learning. Paper

presented at the EARLI99-conference (European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction), Gothenburg, August,1999. Available at the web: http://www.dsv.su.se/~patricd/Publications/EARLI-99.PDF

[5] Daniels-McGhee, S., & Davis, G. A. (1994). The Imagery-Creativity Connection. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 28(3), 152-176.

[6] Duffy, T.M. & Jonassen, D.H. (Eds.) (1992). Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.[7] Einstein, A. (1946). Autobiographical notes. In P. A. Schlipp (Ed.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher-scientist (pp. 2-94). Evanston, Il.:

Library of Living.[8] Fosnot, C.W. (Ed). (1996). Constructivism: Theory, Perspectives and Practice. New York: Teachers College Press.[9] Jonassen, D. (1990). Thinking technology: Towards a constructivist view of instructional design. Educational Technology , 32-34.[10] Kafai, Y.B. & Resnick, M. (Eds) (1996). Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking and Learning in a Digital World.

Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.[11] Karlgren, K., & Ramberg, R., (1998). Learning the Refined Language Game of Polarization in Physics. In: Bruckman, A. S.,

Guzdial, M., Kolodner, J. L., & Ram, A., (Eds.), Proceedings of the ICLS (International Conference of the Learning Sciences),Atlanta, GA, USA.

[12] Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning - legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.[13] Mandl, H., & Levin, J. R. (Eds.). (1989). Knowledge acquisition from text and pictures. Amsterdam: North-Holland.[14] Ramberg, R. & Karlgren, K. (1998). Fostering Superficial Learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 14, 120-129.[15] Ramberg, R. & Karlgren, K (forthcoming). Argumentation based explanations as support for learning. Paper to be presented at

Paper to be presented at the EARLI99-conference (European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction), Gothenburg,August, 1999. Available at the web: http://www.dsv.su.se/~robban/Earli99.pdf

[16] Roschelle, J. (1996). Designing for cognitive communication: epistemic fidelity or mediating collaborating inquiry. In D. L. Day &D. K. Kovacs (Eds.), Computers, Communication & Mental Models (pp. 13-25). London: Taylor & Francis.

[17] Säljö, R., & Bergqvist, K., (1997). Seeing the Light: Discourse and Practice in the Optics Lab. In: Resnick, L., Säljö, R., Pontecorvo,C., & Burge, B., (eds.), Discourse, Tools and Reasoning - Essays on Situated Cognition. NATO ASI Series, vol 160. SpringerVerlag, Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 385-405.

[18] Ueno, N., & Arimoto, N., (1993). Learning Physics by Expanding the Metacontext of Everyday Phenomena. The QuarterlyNewsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 15, April (2), pp. 53-63.

[19] Vosniadu, S. (1994). Capturing and modeling the process of conceptual change. Learning and Instruction, 4, 45-69.[20] Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the Mind. A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Herfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf.[21] Willows, D. M., & Houghton, H. A. (Eds.). (1987). The Psychology of illustration. Basic research. (Vol. 1). New York: Springer.

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Appendix

The text given (as direct a translation from Swedish aspossible) and some illustrations.

Text

A helium balloon that hangs from the floor in a rail-way cart will strive in the same direction as the accel-eration. A steel ball that hangs from the ceiling willhowever strive in a direction, opposite to the accelera-tion.

The balloon strives in a direction that is opposite tothe equivalent field of gravitation, that is opposite to thevector g'. The direction of the acceleration A is decisive.

A coordination system in constant acceleration, withrespect to the surface of the earth, is not an inertia sys-tem. A coordinate system related to a cart, which in turnaccelerates on a horizontal track is an example of such asystem. You can apply the laws of mechanics on such asystem if you add, to the known forces on a particle withthe mass m, a so called inertia force = -m*(vector A)where the vector A is the acceleration of the coordinatesystem.

The inertia force, -m*(vector A) is, in the same way asgravity, m*(vector g), proportional to the mass m. Theinertia force is directed opposite to the vector A.

If we add the inertia, -m*(vector A) and the gravity(m*vector g) to a resultant, m*(vector g') the effect fromthe inertia and gravity will together be the same as fromg'= |vector g'|=square root of (g*g+A*A). This is calledthe equivalence principle.

Figure 1 Abstract illustration

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Figure 2 Concrete illustration of balloon in arailway car, accelerating to the right.

In the dynamic illustration, the railway car was actu-ally shown moving. First the car accelerated to the right,then it kept the same movement for a while, and finally itslowly stopped. The white balloon followed themovements of the car (to the right, standing still and tothe left), whereas the black steel ball moved in the op-posite direction.

Figure 3. Rotating grass question, correctanswer

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