Measuring Integration of Information in Multirepresentational Software

Baruch Schwarz, Tommy Dreyfus

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The use of multiple representations to support the acquisition of scientific and mathematical concepts is commonplace among software designers. It is based on the belief that when presented different displays representing the same concept, students are able to integrate the information into a coherent whole. Very little has been done to corroborate this assumption. This article presents a way to measure how students integrate information about the concept of mathematical function when working with a multirepresentational software. After defining computational measures based exclusively on students’ actions, we compare an interpretation of these measures with an analysis of students’ work based on verbal data. The match between these two interpretations indicates that the measures are good indicators of integration of information. While the methods used here are specific to the present software, they are adaptable to other computerized environments.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)177-198
Number of pages22
JournalInteractive Learning Environments
Volume3
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 1993
Externally publishedYes

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