Jaakkola, T., & Veermans, K. (2015). Effects of abstract and concrete simulation elements on science learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 31(4), 300-313.

Jaakkola, T.; Veermans, K.

2015

Jaakkola, T., & Veermans, K. (2015). Effects of abstract and concrete simulation elements on science learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 31(4), 300-313.

Contemporary evidence on the effectiveness of concrete and abstract representations inscience education is based solely on studies conducted in college context. There it has beenfound that learning with abstract representations produces predominantly better outcomesthan learning with concrete representations and combining the representations can be evenmore productive. In the present study, 52 elementary school students used a computersimulation to discover the basic principles of electric circuits. The perceptual concreteness ofsimulation elements either remained concrete or switched from concrete to abstract during thelearning. In order to compare the relative effectiveness of the learning conditions and assessthe changes in students’ conceptual understanding, the students completed a subject knowledge assessment questionnaire before and after learning with the simulation. According to theresults, the students gained a better understanding of the circuits by learning with constantlyconcrete simulation elements than switching from concrete to abstract elements during thelearning. Constantly concrete elements also enhanced the learning process by reducing thelearning times. The outcomes of the study suggest that the effects of concrete and abstractrepresentations in science education are notably different in elementary school context ascompared with college contexts.

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