Abstract
In this paper, the potential of visuo-haptic simulators to help engineering students to understand the nature of electric forces between different electric charge distributions is addressed. Three visuo-haptic simulators were designed to perceive the attractive–repulsive behavior as well as the dependence on distance of electrical forces for: (a) point charge, (b) line charge, and (c) plane charge. Design elements were incorporated to improve the 3D perception of the simulators. A sample of N = 111 engineering students practiced with the simulators: 87 enrolled in an Electricity and Magnetism course and 24 enrolled in a more advanced Electromagnetic Fields course. Pre-test and Post-test were applied before and after working with the simulators and average learning gains were obtained. t-tests were performed to determine the statistical significance of the results. Significant learning gains were obtained for the comprehension of the force dependence in the case of line charge and plane charge, but not for the point charge, due to the fact that most students started with very high Pre-test scores in this last case. These results suggest that the use of visuo-haptic simulators may help students to better identify the dependence of electric forces on distance. It was also observed that the potential effect of improving the recognition of electric interactions was higher among students with lower previous familiarity with these topics, as compared to more advanced students. Through exit surveys, it was found that the students liked very much the haptic activity and that it sparked their interest in learning new physical concepts.
Highlights
Advances in multimodal interaction have enriched teaching-learning models
Results from this study suggest that students significantly improved their conceptual understanding of electric field interactions for distributed charges after being exposed to a visuo-haptic simulation guided activity
From the results presented in the previous sections, several conclusions can be obtained
Summary
Advances in multimodal interaction have enriched teaching-learning models. The theory of embodied cognition is based on the paradigm of adding senses, improving the learning experience, and allowing the student to acquire knowledge on a deeper and longer-term level [1]. Haptic technologies add the sense of touch in a virtual world, allowing users to perceive different sensations such as hardness, shape, weight, and texture of virtual objects in visuo-haptic simulators [2,3]. Visuo-haptic learning environments allow the student’s brain to receive stimuli from different channels, allowing a more complete experience and better acquisition of concepts and experience in the learning process [4]. Haptic devices recreate the sense of touch by computing interactions between the user and virtual objects, rendering force feedback on the user. Visuo-haptic environments that use low-cost haptics open up the possibility of using them both at home and in
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