College Students' Perceptions toward the Multi Modal Representations and Instruction of Representations in Learning Modern Physics

Abstract

Problem Statement: In recent years, researchers on learning have focused on learning with multimodal representation and this research has shown that when learners can interact with an appropriate representation their performance is enhanced. If students have the opportunity to interact consciously with modal representation, learning can be extended, comprehensively and deeply. This study studies the question of what would be the appropriate instructional design to scaffold such an enhancement and what would be the distribution of modes that would be found to be valuable, from students’ perspective, in instruction and writing-to-learn activities, with specific regard to science education topics. Purpose of Study: The purpose of this study was two folded; firstly, to find out the effect of instructional activities on students’ understanding of modal representations and, secondly, to explore the multimodal representations that college students find effective and use in studying some of the modern physics units Methods: This study was carried out with 80 sophomore college students in Turkey within two identical sections of introductory modern physics for an education majors course in the 2007-2008 spring semester. Three assignments were designed and implemented to explore effective practices that can help students to enhance their understanding of modal representations. At the end of the instructional stage, through survey and semi