Principled animation design improves comprehension of complex dynamics

Abstract

Learners can have difficulty in decomposing conventionally designed animations to obtain raw material suitable for building high quality mental models. A composition approach to designing animations based on the Animation Processing Model was developed as a principled alternative to prevailing approaches. Outcomes from studying novel and conventional animation designs (independent variable) were compared with respect to mental model quality, knowledge of local kinematics, and capacity to transfer (dependent variables). Study of a compositional animation that presented material in a contiguous fashion resulted in higher quality mental models of a piano mechanism than non-contiguous or control (conventional) versions but no significant differences regarding local kinematics or transfer. Eye fixation data indicated that the compositional animation led to superior mental models because it particularly fostered relational processing. Implications for future research and the design of educational animations are discussed.

1.1. Efforts to improve educational effectiveness

Researchers have investigated numerous interventions intended to increase animationrsquo;s effectiveness as a tool for learning. They include giving the learner control over the animationrsquo;s display regime, modifying the animationrsquo;s presentation speed ; , subdividing the animationrsquo;s time course into smaller segments, cueing the animationrsquo;s high relevance information, providing strategy training to learners regarding more effective animation processing, accompanying the animation with ancillary learning activities and displaying multiple animation segments simultaneously. However, achieving major improvements in the quality of the mental models that learners develop from animations has proven to be particularly elusive.

Although many innovative interventions have been pursued by researchers thus far, there is one key aspect that has not yet been addressed: the fundamental design assumptions upon which the animations are based in the first place. We suggest that some major problems learners currently have in processing animations could be reduced by a fundamental re-thinking of animation design. The research reported here investigated the potential of an alternative approach to designing educational animations. Rather than being primarily concerned with animations as externalrepresentations of the target subject matter (as is the case with conventionally designed animations), the main focus of this alternative is on helping learners to compose betterinternal representations (i.e., mental models). Because of its concern with the psychological processes involved in composing these mental models, we have termed this design alternative the composition approach. In the study reported here, conventional and novel types of animation design (independent variable) were compared with respect to their outcomes for mental model quality, knowledge of local kinematics, and capacity to transfer (dependent variables).

1.2. Theoretical foundations for compositional animation design

The origins of the composition approach lie in the Animation Processing Model (APM) (Lowe amp; Boucheix, 2008). This theoretical framework describes the perceptual and cognitive processes that are thought to occur when an individual is engaged in learning from conventionally designed complex explanatory animations. We characterize these conventional animations as comprehensive representations because they portray the targeted aspects of their subject matter in a relatively comprehensive and faithful manner, thus following a “physical fidelity principle” which is known to impair learning especially for domain novices ( Van Merrieuml;nboer amp; Kester, 2014). They include all the referent systemrsquo;s relevant entities and depict their dynamics in a behaviorally realistic manner (Lowe amp; Boucheix, 2012). The APM can be used to identify potential sources of learner difficulty in processing complex comprehensive animations and to suggest ways of ameliorating such difficulties.

The Animation Processing Model has five main phases. Overall, this learner processing can be divided into two broad types of activity: decomposition(APM Phase 1) and composition (APM Phases 2–5). A distinction is thus made between (i) analytic processing in which the learner must initially decompose the animationrsquo;s continuous flux of information into the discrete event units (entities plus their associated behaviors) that provide the raw material for mental model building, and (ii) synthetic processing in which this raw material is cumulatively and iteratively composed into the higher order knowledge structures that comprise a mental model of the target subject matter.

Previous research indicates that decomposition of a complex animation can be particularly problematic for learners who lack domain specific background knowledge (Lowe amp; Schnotz, 2014). Rather than decomposing the presented depiction appropriately into the thematically relevant event units required for building high quality mental models, learners tend to extract subsets of information on the basis of their perceptual salience (Schnotz amp; Lowe

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原始动画设计提高了对复杂动力学的理解

摘要

学习者难以分解常规设计的动画，以获得适合建立高质量心理模型的原料。基于动画处理模型设计动画的组合方法被开发为主流方法的原则替代。通过对心理模型质量，本地运动学知识和转移能力（因变量）进行比较，研究小说和常规动画设计（自变量）的结果。以连续的方式呈现材料的组合动画的研究导致钢琴机制的质量更高质量的心理模型比非连续或控制（常规）版本，但在局部运动学或转移方面没有显着差异。眼睛固定数据表明，组合动画导致了优越的心理模型，因为它特别促进了关系处理。讨论了对未来研究和教育动画设计的启示。

1.1。努力提高教育效能

研究人员已经调查了许多干预措施，旨在增加动画作为学习工具的有效性。它们包括让学习者控制动画的显示方式，修改动画的演示速度;将动画的时间流程细分为较小的部分，提示动画的高相关性信息，为学习者提供有关更有效的动画处理的策略培训，伴随动画与辅助学习活动并同时显示多个动画片段。然而，学习者从动画开发的精神模型的质量得到重大改进已被证明是特别难以捉摸的。

尽管迄今为止，研究人员一直在追求许多创新的干预措施，但还有一个关键方面尚未得到解决：动画的基本设计假设首先在于。我们建议，通过对动画设计的基本重新思考，可以减少学习者目前处理动画的一些主要问题。这项研究报告调查了设计教育动画的另一种方法的潜力。而不是主要关注动画作为目标主题的外部表现（如传统设计的动画的情况），这种替代方案的主要重点是帮助学习者组成更好的内在表征（即心理模型）。由于对与撰写这些心理模型有关的心理过程的关注，我们将这种设计方法称为组合方法。在这里报道的研究中，将传统和新颖的动画设计类型（自变量）与其心理模型质量，本地运动学知识和转移能力（因变量）的结果进行比较

1.2。组合动画设计的理论基础

组合方法的起源在于动画处理模型（APM）（Lowe＆Boucheix，2008）。这个理论框架描述了当个人从传统设计的复杂的解释动画学习时被认为发生的感知和认知过程。我们将这些常规动画描述为综合表示，因为它们以相对全面和忠实的方式描绘其主题的目标方面，因此遵循已知损害学习的“物理保真原则”（VanMerrieuml;nbober＆Kester， 2014）。它们包括所有指示系统的相关实体，并以行为上的现实方式描绘其动态（Lowe＆Boucheix，2012）。 APM可用于识别处理复杂综合动画的学习者难度的潜在来源，并提出改善此类困难的方法。

动画处理模型有五个主要阶段。总的来说，这个学习者的处理可以分为两大类：分解（APM阶段1）和组成（APM阶段2-5）。因此，在（i）分析处理中，学习者必须首先将动画的连续通量信息分解成为心理模型构建提供原材料的离散事件单位（实体加上相关行为），以及（ii）合成处理，其中该原料被累积地迭代地组成包含目标主题的精神模型的高阶知识结构以往的研究表明，一个复杂的动画分解可以是特别有问题的学生缺乏特定领域的背景知识（Lowe amp;amp; schnotz，2014）。而不是提出适当分解描述为构建高质量的心理模型所需的主题相关的活动的单位，学习者倾向于在他们的视觉特征提取的基础信息子集（schnotz amp;amp; Lowe，2008）。净的结果是，这种不适当的提取的原料可以严重损害的质量的心理模型，他们最终能够建立从研究动画。

以前的研究表明，复杂动画的分解对于缺乏领域特定背景知识的学习者来说可能尤其成问题（Lowe＆Schnotz，2014）。学习者倾向于根据他们的感知突出性来提取信息子集（Schnotz＆Lowe，2008），而不是将呈现的描述适当地分解为构建高质量心理模型所需的主题相关事件单元。最终的结果是，这种不合适的提取原材料可能会严重损害他们最终能够通过研究动画构建的心理模型的质量。

基于简单到复杂测序的典型方法是将材料或性能分解成简单的部分，然后分别进行培训并逐渐整合（VanMerrieuml;nler等，2003）。教学测序已经以一系列方式使用，包括信息预训练（Mayer and Pilegard，2014; Mayer et al。，2002），元素交互性（Kester et al。，2004a; Kester et al。，2004b），动态可视化（Khacharem等，2012; Spanjers等，2011）。各种研究已经显示出这种测序技术的积极作用（例如，Clarke等，2005; Limniou和Whitehead，2010; Mayer and Moreno，2003; Mayer et al。，2002; Musallam，2010; Pollock et al。，2002 ）。