Learning with simulations: Influence of a computer simulation with hand- on activities on students' learning of the physics capacitors' concepts

Abstract

The persistence of this study was to investigate the contribution of a computer simulation to students´ learning of physics concepts (charging and discharging of capacitors). Interactive computer simulation (Crocodile simulation) was used to spread over the aim of this study. This attempt assesses the progress in understanding the concepts by grade 11 Scientific section after four complete periods (200 minutes) in two different situations: 1- using only a computer simulation; 2-using computer simulation with “hand- on” activities. The progress was measured through post-test. The results of both descriptive and inferential statistics show that the learners’ understanding of capacitors’ concepts that can be enhanced and were highly achieved when learners used the computer simulation combined with “hand- on” activities. The use of Hands-on activities was identified as the cause of this differentiation.

Effectiveness of Virtual Simulations in Improving Secondary Students’ Achievement in Physics: A Meta-Analysis

“…In addition, positive and large effect sizes were observed in other studies (Al-Amri et al, 2020;Banik & Biswas, 2017;Chumba et al, 2020;Kibirige & Tsamago, 2019;Yehya et al, 2019;Yildirim, 2021;Yunzal & Casinillo, 2020). These studies share similarities when it comes to the virtual simulations, i.e.…”

Newton’s Gravity Interactive Simulation to Improve 10th-Grade Students’ Learning Outcome

“…Even by using simulation, the learning process can be achieved as a meaningful learning process [14]. The use of simulation is ultimately able to facilitate the understanding of a concept [15][16][17]. So the use of simulation in the physics learning process is highly recommended [18].…”

Generalisable Methods for Early Prediction in Interactive Simulations for Education

“…The PhET interactive simulations 2 allow students to explore natural phenomena using different parameter configurations and ideally infer the underlying principles on their own. A large body of research has focused on analysing students' inquiry strategies using these simulations, usually coupled with an explicit task to be solved using the simulation [35]. To evaluate the (early) prediction models presented in this paper, we used a ranking task which we adapted to two different simulation environments.…”