Aim and background: Today, students are encouraged to develop spatial visualization ability to meet the challenges of digital technologies impacting their daily life and education when exposed more time to a virtual 3D environment. This study investigated the effect of cognitive flexibility levels on students' spatial visualization abilities and…

Electrochemistry is a branch of chemistry concerned with the interrelation of electrical and chemical effects, in which mathematical equations are employed to describe the fundamental principles of electrode processes and measurement methods. In this work, we present a graphical simulation that provides visual observations of dynamical behavior…

Computational thinking is the capacity of undertaking a problem-solving process in various disciplines (including STEM, i.e. science, technology, engineering and mathematics) using distinctive techniques that are typical of computer science. It is nowadays considered a fundamental skill for students and citizens, that has the potential to affect…

Studies have shown the importance of visual metaphor in facilitating learning. Metaphor aids in communicating complex concepts in a clear manner, and enhances the learning experience. This study investigates graduate students' experiences and attitudes toward visual metaphors in an online learning environment. The visual metaphor used in this…

Organic chemistry students struggle with understanding the energetics of chemical reactions. Reaction coordinate diagrams are one tool that is widely used in organic chemistry classrooms to assist students with visualizing and explaining the energy changes that take place throughout a reaction. Thirty-six students enrolled in organic chemistry II…

Understanding many scientific phenomena, processes, or systems may be especially dependent on a student's ability to visualize or manipulate spatial information in order to construct mental representations. One instructional technique often included in science texts to help students to understand difficult concepts is the use of concrete or…

Database technology affects many disciplines beyond computer science and business. This paper describes two animations developed with images and color that visually and dynamically introduce fundamental relational database concepts and querying to students of many majors. The goal is for educators in diverse academic disciplines to incorporate the…

This paper presents a web-based education platform for the visualization and animation of the digital logic design process. This includes the design of combinatorial circuits using logic gates, multiplexers, decoders, and look-up-tables as well as the design of finite state machines. Various configurations of finite state machines can be selected…

Critical thinking, problem solving, the use of tools, and the ability to consume and analyze information are important skills for the 21st century workforce. This article presents a qualitative case study that follows five undergraduate biology majors in a computer science course (CS0). This CS0 course teaches programming within a data-driven…

This paper is the first part of a multiphase study examining students' mental models about the quantization of physical observables--light, energy, and angular momentum. Thirty-one second-year physics and physics education college students who were taking a modern physics course participated in the study. The qualitative analysis of data revealed…

Molecular visualizations have been widely endorsed by many chemical educators as an efficient way to convey the dynamic and atomic-level details of chemistry events. Research indicates that students who use molecular visualizations are able to incorporate most of the intended features of the animations into their explanations. However, studies…

According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis (Schacter & Addis, 2007), both remembered past and imagined future events rely heavily on episodic memory. An alternative hypothesis is that observed similarities between remembering and imagining reflect the influence of broader factors such as descriptive ability, narrative style,…

We investigated the effect of modeling and visualization resources on upper-division, undergraduate and graduate students' performance on an open-ended assessment of their understanding of physical hydrology. The students were enrolled in one of five sections of a physical hydrology course. In two of the sections, students completed homework…

The purpose of the two experiments was to investigate the potential effects of different types of visualizations and self-explanation prompts on learning human cardiovascular system in a multimedia environment. In Experiments 1 and 2, 70 and 44 college students were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions in a 2 × 2 factorial design with…

The aim of the 2018 International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA) conference was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive…