Prior knowledge as a moderator between signaling and learning performance in immersive virtual reality laboratories

Prior knowledge activation facilitates learning. Note taking during prior knowledge activation (i.e., note taking directed at retrieving information from memory) might facilitate the activation process by enabling learners to build an external representation of their prior knowledge. However, taking notes might be less effective in supporting prior knowledge activation if available prior knowledge is limited. This study investigates the effects of the retrieval-directed function of note taking depending on learners' level of prior knowledge. It is hypothesized that the effectiveness of note taking is influenced by the amount of prior knowledge learners already possess. Sixty-one high school students participated in this study. A prior knowledge test was used to ascertain differences in level of prior knowledge and assign participants to a low or a high prior knowledge group. A 2×2 factorial design was used to investigate the effects of note taking during prior knowledge activation (yes, no) depending on learners' level of prior knowledge (low, high) on mental effort, performance, and mental efficiency. Note taking during prior knowledge activation lowered mental effort and increased mental efficiency for high prior knowledge learners. For low prior knowledge learners, note taking had the opposite effect on mental effort and mental efficiency. The effects of the retrieval-directed function of note taking are influenced by learners' level of prior knowledge. Learners with high prior knowledge benefit from taking notes while activating prior knowledge, whereas note taking has no beneficial effects for learners with limited prior knowledge.

It is complicated to design a computer simulation that adapts to students with different characteristics. This study documented cases that show how college students’ prior chemistry knowledge level affected their interaction with peers and their approach to solving problems with the use of computer simulations that were designed to learn electrochemistry. Students with different prior knowledge levels were found to use different approaches to solving problems with the use of computer simulations. In particular, the cases showed that students with a high level of prior knowledge tended to use the equations and formulas to accomplish the learning tasks and then use the computer simulations to confirm their predictions. Students with a low level of prior chemistry knowledge used the computer simulations as the main resources to accomplish their tasks. Considerations of individual differences and the integration of learning materials were suggested for further research on instructional use of computer simulations.

El principal objetivo de esta investigación, basada en estudio de casos, era identificar y describir las estrategias de interpretación y producción de textos que estudiantes universitarios activaron para cumplir con una tarea que les requería elaborar un informe académico. Nuestro interés era investigar las diferencias de las estrategias empleadas por estudiantes con mayor y menor nivel de conocimientos previos sobre el tema y sobre el comportamiento estratégico y revelar de qué formas esa diferencia afecta el proceso de producción del texto. Asimismo, estimar el nivel de adecuación de las estrategias de lectura y escritura empleadas por ambos grupos y examinar el grado de consistencia de las respuestas referidas a las estrategias que dicen emplear y las efectivamente activadas. Las participantes del estudio eran estudiantes que asistían a un curso de la carrera de Psicopedagogía de la Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto (Argentina). Los datos empíricos fueron recolectados a través de: a) entrevistas y cuestionarios administrados a los estudiantes acerca de las estrategias que emplearon, b) evidencias sobre el uso de esas estrategias en los materiales de estudio (subrayados, diagramas, toma de notas, anotaciones en los textos) c) textos intermedios (esquemas, planes para el texto, borradores). Se asignaron dos, uno y cero puntos para difrenciar entre estrategias adecuadas, inadecuadas e insuficientes respectivamente. Los datos recabados permitieron dar cuenta del efecto mediador de los conocimientos previos: estudiantes con mayor nivel de esos conocimientos no solo manifestaron una tendencia a emplear estrategias más adecuadas sino también una propensión levemente superior al incremento del grado de adecuación.

A wealth of researches has indicated that retrieval practice can be used as an effective means to improve memory. Recently the effects of retrieval practice have captured the attention of contemporary researchers who are interested in educational applications of retrieval practice. Some researchers have examined the effectiveness of retrieval practice relative to elaborative studying with concept mapping, and found that practicing retrieval produces greater gains in meaningful learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping which has received comment and query by researchers advocating constructivism who thought, compared with practice retrieval, concept mapping is too complex to master. In view of these criticism, the current research examined the effectiveness of retrieval practice and concept mapping from the perspective of cognitive load, it is hypothesized that the intrinsic load of study task which depends on learners’ prior knowledge level has different influence on retrieval practice and concept mapping, and the concept mapping strategy is more complex than retrieval practice, so it could produce more extraneous load on learner and influence the effectiveness. Two experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. In experiment 1, 120 college students were engaged in a 2 (prior knowledge level: high vs. low) × 3 (study strategy type: retrieval practice vs. concept mapping and repeated study) between-subjects design of experiment, which was aimed to study the different influence of prior knowledge level on the effectiveness of three types of strategies. In experiment 2, 43 college students participated in a within-subjects design of experiment, each student completed a partial concept mapping of one science text and practiced retrieval of a second text which was designed to study the influence of strategy’s complexity on strategy’s effectiveness. The results indicated that on correct rate of memory retention and transfer, the main effect of prior knowledge level wasn't significant, but there was an interaction between learning strategies and prior knowledge level: under the condition of retrieval practice strategy, there is no significant difference on the correct rate of retention and transfer between participates with high prior knowledge and participates with low prior knowledge; as the concept mapping strategy concerned, the participates with high prior knowledge were significantly higher than participates with low prior knowledge on the correct rate of retention and transfer. In addition, the complexity of the strategy would increase learners' extraneous load, but it didn't have decisive influence on the effectiveness of the strategy. In terms of result, it was concluded that the reason why retrieval practice could produce more memory retention and transfer than concept mapping is not because of that its strategy is easier to be master, it is that the concept mapping strategy was very dependent on learner's prior knowledge level. Relatively, retrieval practice is not dependent on learner's prior knowledge level. The results have some important implications. Firstly, retrieval practice is an effective tool to promote retention and transfer, it indeed can enhance subsequent recall more than concept mapping. Thus, educators should pay more attention to the effectiveness of retrieval practice rather than view it as an assessment device to measure what a student knows. Secondly, the findings support the theory that retrieval practice enhances learning by retrieval-specific mechanisms rather than by elaborative study processes.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cueing and prior knowledge on learning and mental effort of students studying an animation with narration. This study employed a 2 (no cueing vs. visual cueing) × 2 (low vs. high prior knowledge) between‐subjects factorial design. The results revealed a significant interaction effect between prior knowledge and cueing on learning. Low prior knowledge learners had higher scores after studying an instructional animation with visual cues, compared to those who studied the same instructional animation without visual cues. Conversely, when cues were not provided, high prior knowledge learners outperformed those high prior knowledge learners who studied with the cued version of an instructional animation. These results indicated that the effects of cueing in an instructional animation change depending on the learners' level of prior knowledge. Specifically, low prior knowledge learners benefited more when visual cues were provided, whereas cues did not facilitate learning for high prior knowledge learners.

IntroductionClinical reasoning has been fostered with varying case formats including the use of virtual patients. Existing literature points to different conclusions regarding which format is most beneficial for learners with diverse levels of prior knowledge. We designed our study to better understand which case format affects clinical reasoning outcomes and cognitive load, dependent on medical students’ prior knowledge.MethodsOverall, 142 medical students (3 rd to 6 th year) were randomly assigned to either a whole case or serial cue case format. Participants worked on eight virtual patients in their respective case format. Outcomes included diagnostic accuracy, knowledge, and cognitive load.ResultsWe found no effect of case format on strategic knowledge scores pre- vs post-test (whole case learning gain = 3, 95% CI. -.01 to .01, serial cue learning gain = 3, 95% CI. -.06 to .00 p = .50). In both case formats, students with high baseline knowledge (determined by median split on the pre-test in conceptual knowledge) benefitted from learning with virtual patients (learning gain in strategic knowledge = 5, 95% CI .03 to .09, p = .01) while students with low prior knowledge did not (learning gain = 0, 95%CI −.02 to .02). We found no difference in diagnostic accuracy between experimental conditions (difference = .44, 95% CI −.96 to .08, p = .22), but diagnostic accuracy was higher for students with high prior knowledge compared to those with low prior knowledge (difference = .8, 95% CI 0.31 to 1.35, p < .01). Students with low prior knowledge experienced higher extraneous cognitive load than students with high prior knowledge (multiple measurements, p < .01).ConclusionsThe whole case and serial cue case formats alone did not affect students’ knowledge gain or diagnostic accuracy. Students with lower knowledge experienced increased cognitive load and appear to have learned less from their interaction with virtual patients. Cognitive load should be taken into account when attempting to help students learn clinical reasoning with virtual patients, especially for students with lower knowledge.

Past studies have found that immersive virtual reality (IVR) may increase students’ cognitive load, distract them from learning tasks, and hinder their knowledge acquisition. To address these challenges, this study explored the integration of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies into IVR, and examined their impact on students’ cognitive load. An experimental design was employed, involving 105 students randomly assigned to either an SRL group (n = 52) or a non-SRL (NSRL) group (n = 53). A two-way mixed-design ANOVA was conducted to identify differences in the science learning outcomes of the two groups. In addition, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to examine the structural relationships among affective factors in IVR environments, cognitive load, and students’ learning outcomes within both the SRL and NSRL conditions. The findings indicate that regardless of whether they received SRL support, students must bear an appropriate (germane) level of cognitive load to achieve comparable learning outcomes. Moreover, the sense of presence, control and active learning, and the components of cognitive load each exert distinct and sometimes inconsistent predictive effects on learning outcomes. These results underscore the necessity of designing balanced IVR learning environments that incorporate SRL elements to optimize cognitive load and enhance educational effectiveness. The study highlights practical implications for educators and instructional designers, such as providing explicit instruction in metacognitive strategies or embedding adaptive scaffolds and real-time cues. Consequently, a deeper exploration into how factors such as presence, control and active learning, and the structure of cognitive load influence learning in virtual environments is warranted.

The learning achievement of high school students of Malang city in physics was still low, thus the appropriate learning strategies was necessaryto optimize the physics learning achievement. V diagram procedural scaffoldingin Group Investigation was designed with the aim to optimize student learning achievement. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in learning achievement of groups of students who learn through Scaffolding Procedural strategies in Group Investigation and groups of students who are studying with Group Investigation, to examine differences in student achievement between thosewith high and low prior knowledge levels, and to examine the interaction between learning strategies (procedural scaffolding in GI and GI) and initial knowledge of students towardlearning achievement. The method used in this study wasquasi-experimental.The design used in this study was Two Factorial Design consisted of two experimental classes and two control classes each. The results indicated that learning achievement group of students who learn through proceduralscaffolding in Group Investigation was higher than the group of students who are studying with Group Investigation. The learning achievements of students with high prior knowledge surpassed those with low prior knowledge. Last, there was an interaction between the learning strategies and prior knowledge of students toward learning achievement.

Drawing on cognitive theories of graphic comprehension and on systemic functional semiotics, the intention of this study is twofold: first, to examine the effects of image design on reading comprehension of science texts; second, to investigate the process of meaning-making when reading image and verbal text. An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that image designs with salient tree structure can cue better reading comprehension about the concept of the biological classification system. A 5-phase interview was developed to investigate the reading comprehension in different textual conditions. 12 Taiwanese students from year 7 were assigned as the participants either in a control group to read the text with the textbook images or in a treatment group to read the same texts but with a salient tree structure image designed to be more coherent with the textual information. The participants are further identified in terms of low, medium, and high level of prior knowledge on the topic according to a pretest. The results support the hypothesis which shows the textbook image did not efficiently activate as many theme-related meanings as the tree-structure one. Moreover, there are many misunderstandings embedded in the design of the textbook image which might also be potential risks for the other readers. The influence of prior knowledge on the reading comprehension was negligible. Implications are drawn for the importance of image design in textbooks and biology pedagogy, and value of extended large-scale research in this area.

This study aims to examine students’ mathematical understanding and anxiety using collaborative teaching. The sample consists of 51 students in the 7th-grade of MTs N Jeureula, one of the Islamic public junior high schools in Jeureula, Aceh, Indonesia. A test of mathematics understanding was administered to the students twice during the period of two months. The result suggests that there is a significant increase in mathematical understanding in the pre-test and post-test. We categorized the students into the high, intermediate, and low level of prior mathematics knowledge. In the high-level prior knowledge, there is no difference of mathematical understanding between the experiment and control group. Meanwhile, in the intermediate and low level of prior knowledge, there is a significant difference of mathematical understanding between the experiment and control group. The mathematics anxiety is at an intermediate level in the experiment class and at a high level in the control group. There is no interaction between the learning model and the students’ prior knowledge towards the mathematical understanding, but there are interactions towards the mathematics anxiety. It indicates that the collaborative teaching model and the students’ prior knowledge do not simultaneously impacts on the mathematics understanding but the mathematics anxiety.

The purpose of this study was to examine how prior knowledge of cellular transport influenced how high school students in the USA viewed and interpreted graphic representations of this topic. The participants were Advanced Placement Biology students (n = 65); each participant had previously taken a biology course in high school. After assessing prior knowledge using the Diffusion and Osmosis Diagnostic Test, two graphical representations of cellular transport processes were selected for analysis. Three different methods of data collection—eye tracking, interviews, and questionnaires—were used to investigate differences in perceived salient features of the graphics, interpretations of the graphics, and processing difficulty experienced while attending to and interpreting the graphics. The results from the eye tracking data, interviews, and instructional representation questionnaires were triangulated and revealed differences in how high and low prior knowledge students attended to and interpreted particle differences, concentration gradient, the role of adenosine triphosphate , endocytosis and exocytosis, and text labels and captions. Without adequate domain knowledge, low prior knowledge students focused on the surface features of the graphics (ex. differences in particle colour) to build an understanding of the concepts represented. On the other hand, with more abundant and better‐organised domain knowledge, high prior knowledge students were more likely to attend to the thematically relevant content in the graphics, which enhanced their understanding. The findings of this study offer a more complete understanding of how differentially prepared learners view and interpret graphics and have the potential to inform instructional design.

This paper presents a framework and detailed vision for using immersive virtual reality (VR) environments to improve the design, verification, validation, and manufacture of medical devices. Major advances in medical device design and manufacture currently require extensive and expensive product cycles that include animal and clinical trials. The current design process limits opportunities to thoroughly understand and refine current designs and to explore new high-risk, high-payoff designs. For the past 4 years, our interdisciplinary research group has been working toward developing strategies to dramatically increase the role of simulation in medical device engineering, including linking simulations with visualization and interactive design. Although this vision aligns nicely with the stated goals of the FDA and the increasingly important role that simulation plays in engineering, manufacturing, and science today, the interdisciplinary expertise needed to realize a simulation-based visual design environment for real-world medical device design problems makes implementing (and even generating a system-level design for) such a system extremely challenging. In this paper, we present our vision for a new process of simulation-based medical device engineering and the impact it can have within the field. We also present our experiences developing the initial components of a framework to realize this vision and applying them to improve the design of replacement mechanical heart valves. Relative to commercial software packages and other systems used in engineering research, the vision and framework described are unique in the combined emphasis on 3D user interfaces, ensemble visualization, and incorporating state-of-the-art custom computational fluid dynamics codes. We believe that this holistic conception of simulation-based engineering, including abilities to not just simulate with unprecedented accuracy but also to visualize and interact with simulation results, is critical to making simulation-based engineering practical as a tool for major innovation in medical devices. Beyond the medical device arena, the framework and strategies described may well generalize to simulation-based engineering processes in other domains that also involve simulating, visualizing, and interacting with data that describe spatially complex time-varying phenomena.

User capabilities in eyes-free spatial target acquisition in immersive virtual reality environments

This study proposes gaze-based hand interaction, which is helpful for improving the user’s immersion in the production process of virtual reality content for the mobile platform, and analyzes efficiency through an experiment using a questionnaire. First, three-dimensional interactive content is produced for use in the proposed interaction experiment while presenting an experiential environment that gives users a high sense of immersion in the mobile virtual reality environment. This is designed to induce the tension and concentration of users in line with the immersive virtual reality environment. Additionally, a hand interaction method based on gaze—which is mainly used for the entry of mobile virtual reality content—is proposed as a design method for immersive mobile virtual reality environment. The user satisfaction level of the immersive environment provided by the proposed gaze-based hand interaction is analyzed through experiments in comparison with the general method that uses gaze only. Furthermore, detailed analysis is conducted by dividing the effects of the proposed interaction method on user’s psychology into positive factors such as immersion and interest and negative factors such as virtual reality (VR) sickness and dizziness. In this process, a new direction is proposed for improving the immersion of users in the production of mobile platform virtual reality content.

This article reports a research project aiming to identify aspects that influence User Experience (UX) in Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) environments.