An Evaluation of Macro-Micro Representation-based Computer Simulation for Physics Learning in Liquid Pressure: Results on Students’ Perceptions and Attitude

Abstract

Computer simulation has been widely used to enhance teaching and learning for last decades and researchers mentioned that the use of computer-simulated experimentation can actively engage and enhance student’s meaningful learning in subject contents. As such, a computer simulation for physics learning in liquid pressure has been created with regarding the interplay among macro- and micro representation of physical knowledge. To evaluate the developed simulation, 40 twelve-grade students were recruited to participate with the simulation. A Likert-scale perception and attitude questionnaires were administered to the students before the participation as pre-test. The perception questionnaire was, only, distributed to the student as post-test. The repeated-measures MANOVA results indicated that there was no significant main effect on gender and interaction effect between gender and time (pre-test/post-test), but there were significant main effect on time. That is, there was no effect of gender difference on students' perceptions towards physics learning through computer simulation. Moreover, Pearson’s correlation indicated that the computer simulation could be used to promote physics learning experience for all students even if they have a negative or positive attitude toward physics lessons