Combinations of perceptual fluency and sense-making competencies contribute synergistically to learning gains in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. However, instructional principles depend on the target of instruction, and in many fields, the targets of instruction are quite different from undergraduate STEM…

Abundant prior research has compared effects of physical and virtual manipulatives on students' conceptual learning. However, most prior research has been based on conceptual salience theory; that is, it has explained mode effects by the manipulative's capability to draw students' attention to conceptually relevant (visual or haptic) features.…

Instruction in many STEM domains heavily relies on visual representations, such as graphs, figures, and diagrams. However, students who lack representational competencies do not benefit from these visual representations. Therefore, students must learn not only content knowledge but also representational competencies. Further, as learning…

Background: A key aspect of STEM learning is the use of visual representations for problem solving. To successfully use visuals, students need to make sense of how they show concepts and to fluently perceive domain-relevant information in them. Adding support for sense making and perceptual fluency to problem-solving activities enhances students'…

Background: A key aspect of STEM learning is the use of visual representations for problem solving. To successfully use visuals, students need to make sense of how they show concepts and to fluently perceive domain-relevant information in them. Adding support for sense making and perceptual fluency to problem-solving activities enhances students'…

In most STEM instruction, students interact with visual representations, which can be presented in either in a physical or a virtual mode or in a blended form that combines both modes. While much research has compared the effects of physical and virtual representations on students' learning, the field is far from being able to predict when and why…

This paper investigates whether prompting students to draw their own visual representations enhances students' learning from technology-based instructional activities with visual representations. Seventy-two undergraduate students were randomly assigned to receive an educational technology with (1) drawing prompts throughout instruction, (2)…

Visual representations are prevalent in STEM instruction. To benefit from visuals, students need representational competencies that enable them to see meaningful information. Most research has focused on explicit conceptual representational competencies, but implicit perceptual competencies might also allow students to efficiently see meaningful…

To learn content knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and math domains, students need to make connections among visual representations. This article considers two kinds of connection-making skills: (1) "sense-making skills" that allow students to verbally explain mappings among representations and (2) "perceptual…

To make complex mathematics concepts accessible to students, teachers often rely on visual representations. Because no single representation can depict all aspects of a mathematics concept, instruction typically uses multiple representations. Much research shows that multiple representations can have immense benefits for students' learning.…

In STEM domains, students are expected to acquire domain knowledge from visual representations that they may not yet be able to interpret. Such learning requires perceptual fluency: the ability to intuitively and rapidly see which concepts visuals show and to translate among multiple visuals. Instructional problems that engage students in…

Instructors in STEM classrooms often frame students' interactions with technologies to help them learn content. For instance, in many STEM domains, instructors commonly help students translate physical 3D models into 2D drawings by prompting them to focus on (a) orienting physical 3D models and (b) generating 2D drawings. We investigate whether…

Making connections among multiple visual representations is key to students' learning. This article considers two learning processes involved in connection making: explicit sense making of connections and implicit perceptual induction of connections. Instructional interventions support these processes via different problem types: sense-making…

Prior research shows that multiple representations can enhance learning, provided that students make connections among them. We hypothesized that support for connection making is most effective in enhancing learning of domain knowledge if it helps students both in making sense of these connections and in becoming perceptually fluent in making…

Prior research shows that multiple representations can enhance learning, provided that students make connections among them. We hypothesized that support for connection making is most effective in enhancing learning of domain knowledge if it helps students both in making sense of these connections and in becoming perceptually fluent in making…