Investigating the Medium Effect of a Mobile Visualization Tool - “DrawScience”

Abstract

Visualization technology allows students to make their own drawings to express their ideas in visual ways. Implementing visualization technology on mobile devices facilitates the integration of drawing activities with classroom or outdoor activities, creating ubiquitous learning experiences with visualizations. However, drawing on paper has been regarded as the most intuitive approach. We wonder whether asking students to draw on computers would hinder their performance due to the medium effect. In this study, we developed three versions of an assessment that required students to draw and explain their ideas of the particulate nature of matter. These three versions consisted of exactly the same items but were delivered through different media, namely, desktop computers, tablets, and paper, respectively. We randomly assigned 18 10th-grade students to use one of the three versions (a total of 54 students). We scored the students’ performance in terms of their drawing and explanations. The results indicated no significant medium effect on their performance. The students drew or wrote on the computers as easily as they drew or wrote on paper. Furthermore, we found that the tablet drawing application was more able to efficiently facilitate the students’ creation of animations than the desktop drawing tool. The results indicate that drawing on tablet computers would not hinder students’ performance and could be more efficient than drawing on desktop computers.