Paper Information
| Title | Enhancing Performance in the "Force Concept Inventory" Test Using Homework Gameplay While Involving Physics Teachers in the Level Design Process: Spacefart |
| Presenter(s) | Patrice Potvin, Martin Riopel, Julien Mercier, Patrick Charland, Alexandre Ayotte and Francois Boucher-Genesse |
| Session | Problem solving games |
| Time | Saturday, October 23, 11:30a-12:30p |
| Location | Green Room |
| Format | Paper Presentation |
| Description | It is now very well recognized that students have difficulties learning physics because of the existence of initial non-scientific naive conceptions that interfere with learning (Duit & Treagust, 2003). Many tools have been developed to enable teachers and researchers to diagnose these conceptions in specific domains and to make students modify them toward more scientific mental models or schemas (DiSessa, 2006). Among these tools, a very well known and many times validated test, the "force concept inventory" (FCI), has been developed to assess conceptual development of the concept of force (Hestenes, Wells, & Swackhammer, 1992). Computer games have also been proposed, among others, as interesting tools for science education. In the last few years, we have developed an -amusing- simulation game, called "SpaceFart" (SF), that addresses conceptual and intuitive understanding of basic mechanics (kinematics and dynamics). SF is an online flash application where a creature (a "spacewhale") must travel through mazes with possibly moving walls, gravity, and other types of constraints. The trajectory of the "spacewhale" has to be "pre-programmed" through a "flight plan" that constrains reflection, forces explicit prediction, links intuitive/qualitative understanding with mathematical formulations through simple counting operations. The level design process can be carried by educators, granting them an active role in the pedagogical use of the application. Designed sequences can also be proposed as homework for students that can be carried out at home and automatically emailed to the teacher when done. |
| More | View PDF of extended abstract |