CAREER: WE FEEL SCIENCE: We Engage with the Flexible, Experimental Environment for Learning in SCIENCE

This five-year CAREER proposal aims at designing, evaluating, and implementing a learning-by-collaborating system that provides haptic, visual, and auditory feedback to students with and without visual impairments to work together in hands-on science learning opportunities. The setting and sample of the proposed study includes sighted and visually impaired students (N=120) from the Arkansas School for the Blind, the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind, the Kansas State School for the Blind, and the Fayetteville (Arkansas) High School. The hypothesis that a haptically enhanced learning-by-collaborating system may increase the science learning of both sighted and visually impaired students guides the study and its four research questions: (1) To what extent does additional haptic feedback during collaborative hands-on practice influence students' learning performance?; (2) To what extent does additional haptic feedback during collaborative hands-on practice influence students' attitudes towards science learning?; (3) How does additional haptic feedback during collaborative hands-on practice influence students' motivation to learn?; and (4) What are the relationships among learner motivation, learning attitudes, and learning performance?

The study employs a research and development design consisting of three stages. The first, Synthesis and Application, allows the PI to identify the set of points of collaboration that need to be supported haptically, audibly, or both, through two group sessions with three pairs of totally blind and partially blind students per session. The second, Development and Formative Evaluation, facilitates the development of two modules on the Nature of Light (Electromagnetic Waves, and Vibrating Charges), as well as the modification of the Molecular Properties, and Heat and Temperature modules, already designed for visually impaired students only. A Design for Co-Touch software framework is used for this purpose, and quality of the interaction techniques will be assessed using internationally established standards for usability, effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. All materials that visually impaired students use are provided in Braille.

The PI will investigate the cognitive and affective impacts of shared haptic experiences on students' science learning through the third stage, Summative Evaluation of Shared Haptic Experiences. A total of 30 pairs of visually impaired and 30 pairs of sighted students participate during this stage. The study employs a two-level-between-subjects condition to manipulate sensory feedback: visual + auditory (students will receive visual and verbal instructions on science concepts) vs. visual + auditory + haptic (students will receive haptic feedback in addition to visual and verbal). This research stage utilizes Campbell & Stanley's (1966) pretest-posttest control group design in which participants are randomly assigned to one of the two groups.

Instruments to be used in the study will be developed or modified and pilot-tested to determine their validity and reliability. To measure learning performance, two tests will be developed: (a) a recall and recognition test using Bloom's taxonomy, and (b) a transfer test to assess learners' ability to integrate and apply knowledge. To measure learning attitudes, the Test of Science-Related Attitudes (Fraser, 1981) will be used. To measure learning motivation, Keller's (2007) Instructional Materials Motivation Survey will be utilized. Statistical analysis (e.g., ANCOVA) will be used to control any initial differences in pretest scores between the groups. Multiple regression will be performed with the learning performance score (the sum of recall and transfer tests) as the dependent variable. Independent variables are learners' attitudes and learners' motivation.