期刊名称：Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal
印刷版ISSN：1855-9719
电子版ISSN：2232-2647
出版年度：2011
卷号：1
期号：4
页码：27-43
出版社：University of Ljubljana
摘要：It is argued that multimedia technology affords an opportunity to bettervisualise complex relationships often seen in chemistry. This paperdescribes the influence of chemistry simulation design facets on userprogress through a simulation. Three versions of an acid-base titrationsimulation were randomly allocated to 36 volunteers to examine their interactionswith the simulation. The impact of design alterations on thetotal number of interactions and their patterns was analysed for the followingfactors: (a) the place of a feature on the screen, (b) alignment ofthe sequence of instructions, (c) additional instruction before the simulation,(d) interactivity of a feature. Additionally, interactions between individualfactors, such as age, prior experience with science simulationsand computer games, perception of the difficulty of science simulations,and general subject knowledge, on one hand, and the efficiency of usingthe simulation, on the other hand, were examined. The findings suggestthat: (a) centrality of the position of an element significantly affects thenumber of interactions with the element, (b) re-arranging the sequenceof instructions on the screen in left-to-right order improves the followingof instructions, (c) providing users with additional written advice to follownumbered instructions does not have a significant impact on studentbehaviour, (d) interactivity of a feature was found to have a strong positivecorrelation with the number of interactions with that feature, which warrantsa caution about unnecessary interactivity that may hinder simulationefficiency. Surprisingly, neither prior knowledge of chemistry nor theage of the participants had a significant effect on either the number ofinteractions or the ability to follow on-screen instructions.
