| dc.description.abstract | This study investigates how two educational design approaches, action-based embodied design and
interactive dynamic visualizations, support students' learning processes and outcomes when
exploring geometric similarity of quadrilaterals. In interactive dynamic visualizations, students
manipulate digital figures using sliders or other controls to transform, and the software automatically
preserves key mathematical properties, such as angle sizes and proportional side lengths, during
these transformations. In contrast, action-based embodied design engages students in motor
problems where they are invited to actively maintain these key mathematical properties themselves
for similarity, supported by continuous color feedback.
The role of the motor problem and continuous feedback in action-based embodied design, as
compared to interactive dynamic visualizations, remains underexplored in the context of student
learning. This study addresses that gap through a two-part design: a multiple case study exploring
students’ learning processes by analyzing video data and a two-group experiment measuring learning
outcomes through pre- and post-tests. Accordingly, we designed two learning environments, one
based on action-based embodied design and the other on interactive dynamic visualizations, to
investigate this.
Findings indicate that action-based embodied design is more effective in helping students
mathematize the underlying properties that define similarity, whereas interactive dynamic
visualizations are more effective in supporting students to recognize similarity between shapes. While
both designs facilitated learning, how students learned varied depending on the design features and
individual learner differences. Furthermore, students showed the new ways of moving learned
through the motor problem in action-based embodied design in their gestures. | |
