Comparing the effects of dynamic computer visualization on undergraduate students’ understanding of osmosis with randomized posttest-only control group design

Abstract

This study describes the impact of embedding dynamic computer visualization (DCV) in an online instrument that was designed to assess students' understanding of osmosis. The randomized posttest-only control group research was designed to compare the effect and the perceived helpfulness of the integration of DCV before and after the administration of an osmosis instrument. College students from three large classes (N = 640) were randomly assigned to participate in the research through an online system. Rasch-PCM was applied to determine the psychometric properties of the instrument and differentiate the student's understanding of osmosis. Welch two-sample t test was applied to examine whether there was significant discrepancy between groups. Multiple regressions analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between predictors and the student's understanding level, alluding to the performance on the online instrument. We found (a) the psychometric properties of the instrument with DCVs were reliable with good construct validity, (b) students who viewed DCV before they took the assessment performed better than those without, especially on solvation-related items, (c) students' time spent on the DCVs significantly contributed to their performance, (d) the current data analytics enabled us to study respondents' DCV navigation behavior, and (e) we summarized how participants perceived DCVs that are in the assessment. Educational implications and significance of this study is also discussed.

Conceptual understanding of osmosis and diffusion by Australian first-year biology students

“…Several studies have reported the use of multimedia simulations to assist students to master concepts, prevent the development of misconceptions, or correct existing misconceptions. For example, animations have been created to simulate: cell division (Elangovan, 2017), photosynthesis (Mikropoulos, Katsikis, Nikolou, & Tsakalis, 2003), diffusion and osmosis (Meir, Perry, Stal, Maruca, & Klopfer, 2005;Sanger et al, 2001;Sung, Shen, Jiang, & Chen, 2017), and protein interactions and dynamics in ligand-receptor complexes (Jenkinson, McGill, & Liu, 2012). These studies have had mixed success.…”

Analysis of Vocational School Students' Ability in Conceptual Understanding

“…This research is a qualitative research based on naturalistic understanding [10]. Qualitative research reveals a phenomenon that occurs and descriptive data collected.…”

Immersive 3D Experience of Osmosis Improves Learning Outcomes of First-Year Cell Biology Students

“…Understanding how molecules move across the cell membrane is a crucial concept in biology and is one that students need to master to acquire broader and more advanced concepts ( Sanger et al. , 2001 ; Lankford and Friedrichsen, 2012 ; Sung et al. , 2017 ).…”

“…In addition, with advances in technology, there is increasing use of multimedia simulations and dynamic visualizations to complement the traditional methods used to teach osmosis and diffusion ( Rundgren and Tibell, 2009 ; Odom et al. , 2017 ; Sung et al. , 2017 ).…”

“…, 2001 ). Sung et al. (2017) allowed one experimental group of students to view animations of osmosis and diffusion before completing an assessment, and the other group viewed the animation after completing the assessment.…”