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dc.contributor.authorOlympiou, Georgiosen
dc.contributor.authorZacharia, Zacharias C.en
dc.contributor.authorDe Jong, Tonen
dc.creatorOlympiou, Georgiosen
dc.creatorZacharia, Zacharias C.en
dc.creatorDe Jong, Tonen
dc.date.accessioned2017-07-27T10:42:46Z
dc.date.availableMAY
dc.date.available2017-07-27T10:42:46Z
dc.date.issued2013
dc.identifier.issn0020-4277
dc.identifier.otherWOS:000316289700007
dc.identifier.urihttps://gnosis.library.ucy.ac.cy/handle/7/38328
dc.description.abstractThis study aimed to identify if complementing representations of concrete objects with representations of abstract objects improves students' conceptual understanding as they use a simulation to experiment in the domain of Light and Color. Moreover, we investigated whether students' prior knowledge is a factor that must be considered in deciding when to use representations of abstract objects. A pre-post comparison study design was used, involving 69 participants assigned to two conditions. The first condition consisted of 36 students who had access to a simulation with representations of concrete objects, whereas the second condition consisted of 33 students who had access to a simulation with representations of both concrete and abstract objects. Both conditions used the same inquiry-oriented curriculum materials, consisting of three sections that included physical phenomena with increasingly complex underlying mechanisms, so that the third section's mechanisms were more complex in nature than those in the first two sections. Tests were administered to assess students' conceptual understanding before and after the presentation of the curricular material as a whole, as well as before and after each of its three sections. Results revealed that the presence of representations of abstract objects was helpful for the first two sections, but only for students with low prior knowledge. On the third, most complex section, also the students with higher prior knowledge profited from the presence of abstract objects. From these findings, we conjecture that for physical phenomena with a lower level of complexity, students with high prior knowledge are able to mentally construct the necessary abstract concepts on their own, whereas for higher levels of complexity they need an explicit representation of the abstract objects in the learning environment.en
dc.sourceInstructional Scienceen
dc.titleMaking the invisible visible: enhancing students' conceptual understanding by introducing representations of abstract objects in a simulationen
dc.typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.identifier.doi10.1007/s11251-012-9245-2
dc.description.volume41
dc.description.issue3
dc.description.startingpage575
dc.description.endingpage596
dc.author.facultyΣχολή Κοινωνικών Επιστημών και Επιστημών Αγωγής / Faculty of Social Sciences and Education
dc.author.departmentΤμήμα Επιστημών της Αγωγής / Department of Education
dc.type.uhtypeArticleen
dc.description.notesPT: Jen
dc.contributor.orcidZacharia, Zacharias C. [0000-0002-6381-0962]
dc.gnosis.orcid0000-0002-6381-0962


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