Is physicality an important aspect of learning through science experimentation among kindergarten students?

Learning outcome achievement in non-traditional (virtual and remote) versus traditional (hands-on) laboratories: A review of the empirical research

“…Zacharia et al (2012) showed that no significant differences were found between kindergarten student learning in TL versus NTL related to a beam balance, thus suggesting that the presence of physicality is not always a requirement for understanding related concepts, but they also found that physicality was required for students who had incorrect prior knowledge of what a beam balance does. The importance of prior knowledge is corroborated in a similar study by Olympiou, Zacharias, and de Jong (2013) that is not included in this review (it was not a TL vs. NTL comparative study).…”

“…In three studies, supporting data was contingent on outcomes being measured, so these studies offered evidence in more than one of these categories (Colorado DOE, 2012;Gorghiu, Gorghiu, Alexandrescu, & Borcea, 2009;Zacharia, Loizou, & Papaevripidou, 2012), thus the graphical total exceeds 100%. The coded results can be found in Table A.1 and summarized in Fig.…”

The Impacts of the Tests on the Scientific Process Skills of the Pre-School Children

“…Similarly, the works of Turpin and Cage (2004), Ornstein (2006), Önen and Gürdal (2006), Büyüktaşkapu, Çeliköz, and Akman (2012) have conducted education programs in which the children are included in a test and perform personal practices whereas they have also conclude that the scientific process skills of the children are developed through such research/test activities (Ünal & Aral, 2014) and that they could make plans and practices suiting the faced problems, i.e., generating solutions and establishing cause-consequence relations. Moreover, Zacharia, Loizou, and Papaevripidou (2012) THE IMPACTS OF THE TESTS ON THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS SKILLS 409 have examined the significance of touching sense through educational tests. The results of such study show that the tests performed by touching the materials are more effective whereas the children act more curious and in a questioning manner as well as with increased prediction and observation skills.…”

How do Students Learn to See Concepts in Visualizations? Social Learning Mechanisms with Physical and Virtual Representations

“…This research suggests that physical and virtual representations have complementary cognitive affordances for student conceptual learning (de Jong et al, 2013;Klahr, Triona, & Williams, 2007;Olympiou & Zacharia, 2012). Physical representations have been shown to be particularly effective in helping students learn concepts that build on movement or real-world experiences such as taking measures (Zacharia, Loizou, & Papaevripidou, 2012), feeling weights , or understanding how scientists collect data in concrete contexts (Winn et al, 2006). Virtual representations have been shown to be effective in helping students learn concepts that describe invisible processes such as electron flow (Finkelstein et al, 2005) or chemical bonding (Zhang & Linn, 2011), summarizing data (Winn et al, 2006), or when removing concrete details can make concepts more salient (de Jong et al, 2013).…”