Use Of External Representations Research Articles

External representations in strategic decision‐making: Understanding strategy's reliance on visuals

AbstractResearch SummaryExternal representations, particularly visuals, are important in strategic decision‐making. However, their pervasiveness and impact are not well understood in the strategy literature. Based on cognitive science research, we identify four cognitive functions crucial to strategic decision‐making that benefit from using external representations. We also propose a conceptual model and propositions that explain how the quality of strategic decision‐making depends on the interactions among task environment, external representations, and managers. We show that external representations influence in predictable ways the boundedly rational process of searching for new strategies. Key determinants include the manager's representational capability and the usability and malleability of the external representation. We discuss implications for users, designers, and teachers of external representations in strategy, as well as suggest avenues for future research.Managerial SummaryThis research points to the pivotal role of external representations, especially visuals, in strategic decision‐making. Drawing from cognitive science, this study identifies four critical cognitive functions that benefit from these external representations—working memory, long‐term memory, pattern recognition, and knowledge transfer. Further, the study highlights that external representations significantly influence the process of strategic decision‐making in predictable ways. Finally, we show that not all external representations are alike in their ease of use and a managers' ability to operate on an external representation, referred to as representational capability, greatly affects the decision‐making quality. The implications extend to users, designers, and educators of external representations, urging attention to the design and use of external representations for improved decision outcomes.

Sensemaking and scientific modeling: Intertwined processes analyzed in the context of physics problem solving

Researchers in physics education have advocated both for including modeling in science classrooms as well as promoting student engagement with sensemaking. These two processes facilitate the generation of new knowledge by connecting to one’s existing ideas. Despite being two distinct processes, modeling is often described as sensemaking of the physical world. In the current work, we provide an explicit, framework-based analysis of the intertwining between modeling and sensemaking by analyzing think-aloud interviews of two students solving a physics problem. While one student completes the task, the other abandons their approach. The case studies reveal that particular aspects of modeling and sensemaking processes co-occur. For instance, the priming on the ‘given’ information from the problem statement constituted the students’ engagement with their mental models, and their attempts to resolve inconsistencies in understanding involved the use of external representations. We find that barriers experienced in modeling can inhibit students’ sustained sensemaking. These results suggest ways for future research to support students’ sensemaking in physics by promoting modeling practices.Received 20 July 2022Accepted 1 February 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.19.010118Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasAssessmentEpistemology, attitudes, & beliefsScientific reasoning & problem solvingPhysics Education Research

Improving Students' Mathematical Problem-Solving Ability through the Use of External Representations

This study has the objectives, namely first, to find out whether students' mathematical problem-solving abilities can be improved by using external representations. Second, analyzing student activities in learning mathematics by using external representations. Third, analyzing student responses to learning mathematics by using external representations. This research uses classroom action research (CAR) or classroom action testing (PTK) methods. According to O'Brien in Mulyatiningsih, "action research is carried out when a group of people (students) identify the problem, then the researcher determines an action to overcome it." Classroom Action Research (CAR) seeks to develop and reflect on a learning model with the aim of improving learning processes and outcomes. Based on the results of the research, it can be concluded that: learning using external representations can improve mathematical problem solving abilities; it can be seen that there is an increase in the number of students who score above the KKM in cycle II, with the percentage of students who are declared complete (reaching the KKM) at 71.4%, or as many as 20 students are higher than in cycle I, with a percentage of 53.57%, or as many as 15 students who are declared complete. This means that most students have achieved learning mastery resulting from learning through the use of external representations

Gesticulating Biochemistry: Exploring the Impact of using Augmented Reality Models on Students’ Usage of Gestures when Talking about Biochemistry

There are multiple examples in the literature highlighting the connection between gestures and meaning‐making by students learning chemical concepts in chemistry; however, there is little known about whether this connection extends to student learning in biochemistry. Moreover, learning biochemistry often involves the use and coordination of multiple external representations (ranging from 2D illustrations and physical models to 3D virtual models) of macromolecules. How does use of these external representations impact student gesture production and meaning‐making when learning new biochemical content? In this study, we used a newly developed augmented reality (AR) model of the KscA channel to investigate the influence of external representations on student produced gestures during a discussion on KscA function. We focused on several research questions: what are the different biochemistry content knowledge that students express through gestures? What are the different types of gestures and patterns of gesture production used by students to express content knowledge? What are the differences, if any, in student produced gestures before and after the introduction of an AR model? What are the relationships between student produced gestures and the AR model? Semi‐structured clinical interviews were conducted and recorded through Zoom. Seven undergraduate students who enrolled in an upper‐division biochemistry course participated in the interview. During the interview, participants were presented with an AR model of KcsA channel after proposing a theory of how potassium ions move through the channel. Participants were then asked to modify their theory. In the first stage of analysis, interview participants’ utterances were transcribed and their gestures were described in terms of hand shape and movement. The identification of unique gestures as part of the coding process highlighted the importance of hand shape vs movement vs a combination of both as ways to delineate different gestures. In the second stage of analysis, qualitative and quantitative differences in student gesture production were identified through a comparative analysis of student gestures before and after their exposure to the AR model. Exposure to the AR model resulted in a shift from gestures that were more general (for example, holding two hands parallel to represent the channel) to more specific to the channel representation they say (for example, holding two hands to form a funnel shape or curling one hand into a tube shape). Our findings add to existing literature on the use of external representation in biochemistry education by highlighting the relationships between AR mediated external representations and gesture mediated external representations. Implications for both the development of new external representations and instructor’s choice of external representations are discussed.

Interaction patterns in exploratory learning environments for mathematics: a sequential analysis of feedback and external representations in Chinese schools

ABSTRACT Feedback in exploratory learning systems has been depicted as an important contributor to encourage exploration. However, few studies have explored learners’ interaction patterns associated with feedback and the use of external representations in exploratory learning environments. This study used Fractions Lab, an exploratory learning environment for mathematics, to facilitate children’s conceptual understanding of fractions in three Chinese schools. Students (n = 189) from six different classes were invited to use Fractions Lab, and 260,000 event logs were collected. Beyond demonstrating the overall efficacy of the approach, lag sequential analysis supported us in approaching a deeper understanding of patterns of interaction. The findings highlight that the design of three-levels of feedback (Socratic, guidance, and didactic-procedural feedback) played different roles in supporting students to use external representations to perform mathematical tasks in an exploratory learning environment. This study sheds light on how these interaction patterns might be applied to the Fractions Lab system in order to provide increasingly tailored support, based on cultural differences, to enhance students’ technology-mediated learning experiences.

Relationship between teaching assistants’ perceptions of student learning challenges and their use of external representations when teaching acid–base titrations in introductory chemistry laboratory courses

Practicing chemists use models, diagrams, symbols, and figures to represent phenomena which cannot be detected by the human senses. Although research suggests that these external representations (ERs) can also be used to address the challenges that students have in learning chemistry, it is not clear how instructors' use of ERs aligns with their perceptions of student learning difficulties. In other words, do instructors use ERs to address what they perceive as students' major challenges in learning chemistry, or are they using ERs for other reasons? The answer to this question could have implications for the professional development of chemistry instructors, including both classroom instructors and laboratory facilitators. As a pilot study to guide the development of a larger project focused on the use and interpretation of ERs, we interviewed eleven general chemistry teaching assistants at a major university in the U.S. Southwest about their use of ERs when facilitating acid–base titration laboratory activities. Our data suggest that there is a lack of alignment between teaching assistants’ primary reported use of ERs and the primary challenge that they perceive their students have when learning about acid–base titrations. We discuss potential reasons for this misalignment, as well as implications for teaching assistant training related to the use of ERs in the laboratory learning environment.

Material representations in mathematical research practice

Mathematicians’ use of external representations, such as symbols and diagrams, constitutes an important focal point in current philosophical attempts to understand mathematical practice. In this paper, we add to this understanding by presenting and analyzing how research mathematicians use and interact with external representations. The empirical basis of the article consists of a qualitative interview study we conducted with active research mathematicians. In our analysis of the empirical material, we primarily used the empirically based frameworks provided by distributed cognition and cognitive semantics as well as the broader theory of cognitive integration as an analytical lens. We conclude that research mathematicians engage in generative feedback loops with material representations, that they use representations to facilitate the use of experiences of handling the physical world as a resource in mathematical work, and that their use of representations is socially sanctioned and enabled. These results verify the validity of the cognitive frameworks used as the basis for our analysis, but also show the need for augmentation and revision. Especially, we conclude that the social and cultural context cannot be excluded from cognitive analysis of mathematicians’ use of external representations. Rather, representations are socially sanctioned and enabled in an enculturation process.

Using a three‐dimensional thinking graph to support inquiry learning

AbstractThe use of external representations has a potential to facilitate inquiry learning, especially in hypothesis generation and scientific reasoning, which are typical difficulties encountered by students. This study proposes and investigates the effects of a three‐dimensional thinking graph (3DTG) that allows learners to combine in a single image, problem information, subject knowledge (key concepts and their relationships), and the hypothesizing and reasoning process involved in exploring a problem, to support inquiry learning. Two classes of eleventh grade students (97 in total) were randomly assigned to use either the 3DTG (i.e., experimental condition) or concept map (i.e., control condition) to complete a group‐based inquiry task in an online environment. Data were collected from multiple data sources, including measures of group inquiry task performance, postknowledge scores, postquestionnaires of student perceptions of consensus building, and open‐ended survey. The analysis of group task performance revealed that participants in the experimental condition performed better in the inquiry task than their counterparts specifically in generating hypotheses and reasoning with data, but not in drawing conclusions. The findings show the 3DTG's benefits in facilitating exploring and justifying hypotheses, and also suggest that the 3DTG can share equal value with concept mapping in terms of drawing conclusions and consensus building. In addition, students using the 3DTG achieved higher scores in the postknowledge test, although no difference was found in their perceptions of consensus building. These findings were validated by students' responses to the survey. Implications of this study and future work are also discussed.

Variation in external representations as part of the classroom lecture:An investigation of virtual cell animations in introductory photosynthesis instruction.

The use of external representations (ERs) to introduce concepts in undergraduate biology has become increasingly common. Two of the most prevalent are static images and dynamic animations. While previous studies comparing static images and dynamic animations have resulted in somewhat conflicting findings in regards to learning outcomes, the benefits of each have been shown individually. Using ERs developed by the Virtual Cell Animation project, we aim to further investigate student learning using different ERs as part of an introductory biology lecture. We focus our study on the topic of photosynthesis as reports have noted that students struggle with a number of basic photosynthesis concepts. Students (n = 167) in ten sections of introductory biology laboratory were introduced to photosynthesis concepts by instructional lectures differing only in the format of the embedded ERs. Normalized gain scores were calculated, showing that students who learned with dynamic animations outperformed students who learned from static images on the posttest. The results of this study provide possible instructional guidelines for those delivering photosynthesis instruction in the introductory biology classroom. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(3):226-234, 2017.

Stimulating Students’ Use of External Representations for a Distance Education Time Machine Design

As faculty members in an instructional design and technology (IDT) program, we wanted to help our graduate students better understand and experience how designers design in the real world. We aimed to design a reflective and collaborative learning environment where we sparked students to engage in reflection, ideation, and the iterative process of problem-solving. For an assignment in a graduate IDT class, we piloted using Cacoo, an online diagramming and mapping tool, to provide and simulate an authentic learning environment to create external representations. For a distance education time machine design assignment, our pilot focused on the ways in which an external representation environment was used to stimulate students’ reflective conversations with design drafts. We share our pilot story by presenting the literature that grounded our pilot, a description of the participants and design assignment, our choice to use Cacoo, the design process, the design assessments, and the pilot’s significance and next steps.

Supporting Sensemaking of Complex Objects with Visualizations: Visibility and Complementarity of Interactions

Making sense of complex objects is difficult, and typically requires the use of external representations to support cognitive demands while reasoning about the objects. Visualizations are one type of external representation that can be used to support sensemaking activities. In this paper, we investigate the role of two design strategies in making the interactive features of visualizations more supportive of users’ exploratory needs when trying to make sense of complex objects. These two strategies are visibility and complementarity of interactions. We employ a theoretical framework concerned with human–information interaction and complex cognitive activities to inform, contextualize, and interpret the effects of the design strategies. The two strategies are incorporated in the design of Polyvise, a visualization tool that supports making sense of complex four-dimensional geometric objects. A mixed-methods study was conducted to evaluate the design strategies and the overall usability of Polyvise. We report the findings of the study, discuss some implications for the design of visualization tools that support sensemaking of complex objects, and propose five design guidelines. We anticipate that our results are transferrable to other contexts, and that these two design strategies can be used broadly in visualization tools intended to support activities with complex objects and information spaces.

Twenty Years on: Reflections on “Supporting the Use of External Representations in Problem Solving”…

We reflect upon a paper we wrote that was published in 1995 (20 years ago). We outline the motivation for the work and situate it in the state of the art at that time. We suggest that a key contribution was to highlight the need to provide support for learners who reason with external representations. The support must be flexible enough to accommodate wide individual differences in representational knowledge. In 1995 we saw AIED systems as potentially having several roles; one key role was to enable the learner to move easily from one external representation (ER) to a different one (switching ERs). Other necessary roles included: to seek to use AI to keep several forms of ER in synchrony as the student works on one of them; to guide the student to one ER form (out of several) most likely to be of use; and to help the student use an ER effectively. We outline where our work seems to have had influence and we review progress in the field since 1995. In our conclusion we identify future research agendas that emerge from recent developments in cognitive science.

Benefits of External Representations in Service Design: A Distributed Cognition Perspective

ABSTRACTA defining characteristic of service design is the use of external representations, which support designers in making intangible aspects of services accessible and shareable. Both current and future states are externally represented, using different service design techniques, for the purposes of articulating insights, learning, communicating, collaborating, and maintaining empathy for customers. The purposes of, and techniques for, making external representations were compared with benefits of using external representations to think, suggested by the theory of distributed cognition. The analysis indicated that the service design techniques could be divided into two groups: definite and ongoing. The analysis also revealed that none of the included techniques explicitly supported designers in making multiple simultaneous representations of services. The research contributes knowledge about how the externalizations relate to benefits of making external representations, and about how to choose and use different service design techniques based on theories of distributed and situated cognition.

The use of physical models of protein structures to probe for learning and reasoning difficulties (618.20)

Biochemistry educators make extensive use of external representations (ERs) to help students visualize the submicroscopic world of biochemical structures, including proteins. Despite broad acceptance, little is understood about the effectiveness of ERs for promoting student learning about protein structure. In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of a physical model kit, Protein Folder, and a protein structure chart, The Protein Chart, at probing for student understanding of protein structure. Twenty‐six students, enrolled in a biochemistry course, participated in a two‐week unit, which made use of the ERs to teach about protein structure. To investigate the educational effectiveness of the ERs, we identified student difficulties resulting from worksheets, quizzes, tests and interviews. We classified difficulties using the conceptual‐reasoning‐mode (CRM) model. This work revealed four novel difficulties students encounter when learning about protein structure. We found that students have difficulties making distinctions between the linear sequence of a protein and its spatial sequence, building protein structures that reflect standard amino acid chirality, portraying correct spatial separation between amino acids in a protein model, and correctly orienting protein strands within a chain. Identification of these difficulties allows educators to anticipate obstacles their student can face and may lead to eventual improvements in the use of ERs for teaching about protein structure.

Making Sense of Digital Footprints in Team-Based Legal Investigations: The Acquisition of Focus

Sensemaking occurs when people face the problem of forming an understanding of a situation. One scenario in which technology has a particularly significant impact on sensemaking and its success is in legal investigations. Legal investigations extend over time, are resource intensive, and require the sifting and re-representation of large collections of electronic evidence and close collaboration between multiple investigators. In this article, we present an account of sensemaking in three corporate legal investigations. We summarize information interaction processes in the form of a model which conceptualizes processes as resource transformations triggered and shaped by both bottom-up and top-down resources. The model both extends upon and validates aspects of a previous account of investigative sensemaking (Pirolli & Card, 2005) and brings to the fore two kinds of focusing. Data focusing involves identifying and structuring information to draw out facts relevant to a given set of investigation issues. Issue focusing involves revising the issues in the light of new insights. Both are essential in sensemaking. We draw this distinction through detailed accounts of two activities in the investigations: reviewing documents for relevance and the creation and use of external representations. This provides a basis for a number of requirements for sensemaking support systems, particularly in collaborative settings, including document annotation; dynamically associating documents of a given type; interacting with documents in fluid ways; linking external representation elements to evidence; filtering external representations in flexible ways; and viewing external representations at different levels of scale and fidelity. Finally, we use our data to analyze the conceptual elements within a “line of inquiry.” This provides a framework that can form the basis for partitioning information into hierarchically embedded inquiry ‘contexts’ within collaborative sensemaking systems.

Prospective Adaptation in the Use of External Representations

An important element of adaptive expertise involves stepping away from a routine to retool one's knowledge or environment. The current study investigated two forms of this adaptive pattern: fault-driven adaptations, which are reactions to a difficulty, and prospective adaptations, which are proactive reformulations. Graduate and undergraduate students with no medical training engaged in a medical diagnosis task that involved complex information management. The graduate students, who were relative experts in information management and data analysis, uniformly made prospective adaptations by taking the time to create external representations of the available information before they diagnosed a single patient. In contrast, the undergraduate students only made representations reactively, when experimental manipulations made their default behaviors impractical. Graduate students tolerated the time lost creating representations in favor of future benefits—well-structured representations led to more optimal diagnostic choices. Overall, the results indicate that long-term educational experiences are correlated with prospective adaptation, even in a novel task domain that is not explicitly a part of those educational experiences. This research provides new metrics for evaluating educational interventions designed to move students along a trajectory toward adaptive expertise.

Meta-representation: an introduction

This paper presents an introduction to Project MaRC. The goal of Project MaRC is to study, in very broad terms, what students know about scientific representations and what is possible for them to learn. We use the term meta-representational competence (MRC) to describe the full range of capabilities that students (and others) have concerning the construction and use of external representations. As part of our project, we are engaging in an analysis of the nature of MRC, and we have begun to explore instructional implications. This introductory paper provides an overview of that work, including its goals and results, and it also provides an introduction to the four following papers in the issue.

Age-related changes in children's use of external representations.

This study explored children's use of external representations. Experiment 1 focused on representatio ns of self: Self-recognition was assessed by a mark test as a function of age (3 vs. 4 years), delay (5 s vs. 3 min), and media (photographs vs. drawings). Four-year-olds outperformed 3-year-olds; children performed better with photographs than drawings; and there was no effect of delay. In Experiment 2, 3- and 4-year-olds used a delayed video image to locate a sticker on themselves C?e//task) or a stuffed animal (other task). 2 tasks were positively correlated with age and vocabulary partialed out. Experiment 3 used a search task to assess whether children have particular difficulty using external representations that conflict with their expectations: 3- and 4-year-olds were informed of an object's location verbally or through video; on half of the trials, this information conflicted with children's initial belief. Three-yearolds performed worse than 4-year-olds on conflict trials, indicating that assessments of self and other understanding may reflect children's ability to reason about conflicting external representations. Assessments of cognitive development routinely require children to understand and use external representations, such as mirror images, drawings, and speech. However, children's use of external representations is an important topic in its own right (e.g., Bialystok, 1999; DeLoache, 1991; Liben, 1999), and difficulty using external representations may contribute to poor performance on tests that were designed to assess other aspects of children's cognition, such as their self-concept or their understanding of belief. As Troseth and DeLoache (1998) put it, The medium can obscure the message (p. 950). In the present study, we first used external representations to assess children's self-concept and then explored the extent to which children's performance on our tests reflected their developing ability to use external representations.

Age-related changes in children's use of external representations.

This study explored children's use of external representations. Experiment 1 focused on representations of self: Self-recognition was assessed by a mark test as a function of age (3 vs. 4 years), delay (5 s vs. 3 min), and media (photographs vs. drawings). Four-year-olds outperformed 3-year-olds; children performed better with photographs than drawings; and there was no effect of delay. In Experiment 2, 3- and 4-year-olds used a delayed video image to locate a sticker on themselves (self task) or a stuffed animal (other task). The 2 tasks were positively correlated with age and vocabulary partialed out. Experiment 3 used a search task to assess whether children have particular difficulty using external representations that conflict with their expectations: 3- and 4-year-olds were informed of an object's location verbally or through video: on half of the trials, this information conflicted with children's initial belief. Three-year-olds performed worse than 4-year-olds on conflict trials, indicating that assessments of self and other understanding may reflect children's ability to reason about conflicting external representations.

Instructional and Contextual Effects on External Memory Strategy Use in Young Children

Young children's ability to devise external representations in problem-solving tasks has not been fully examined. The present two experiments investigated children's creation and use of external representations (i.e., external representation strategies) in different conditions. In each experiment, 4- and 6-year-old children listened to a series of sentences (e.g., “The doll is on the table”) and were required to remember where to place the objects named in the sentences. In Experiment 1, direct training increased the use of external representations. When the salience of task dimensions increased in Experiment 2, children's external representation strategies also increased. Four-year-old children showed a utilization deficiency in external representation strategy use in the prompt conditions, but not in the training condition. Thus, young children require additional situational support before they demonstrate cognitive competencies (Bray, Fletcher, & Turner, 1997).