Ozogul, G., & Johnson, A. M., & Reisslein, M., & Butcher, K. R. (2012, June), Representation Guidance with Abstract and Contextualized Representation: Effects on Engineering Learning Performance in Technological Literacy Education  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21878

\bibitem{asee_peer_21878}
  Ozogul, G., \& Johnson, A. M., \& Reisslein, M., \& Butcher, K. R. (2012, June), \emph{Representation Guidance with Abstract and Contextualized Representation: Effects on Engineering Learning Performance in Technological Literacy Education}
  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas.
  10.18260/1-2--21878

Gamze Ozogul, Amy M. Johnson, Martin Reisslein, and Kirsten R. Butcher.  "Representation Guidance with Abstract and Contextualized Representation: Effects on Engineering Learning Performance in Technological Literacy Education".  2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2012.  https://peer.asee.org/21878 Internet.  12 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_21878}
  Gamze Ozogul, Amy M. Johnson, Martin Reisslein, and Kirsten R. Butcher.
  "Representation Guidance with Abstract and Contextualized Representation: Effects on Engineering Learning Performance in Technological Literacy Education".
  \emph{2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2012.
  https://peer.asee.org/21878 Internet.  12 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_21878
author = "Gamze Ozogul, Amy M. Johnson, Martin Reisslein, and Kirsten R. Butcher"
title = "Representation Guidance with Abstract and Contextualized Representation: Effects on Engineering Learning Performance in Technological Literacy Education"
booktitle = "2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2012"
month = "June"
address = "San Antonio, Texas"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/21878}
number = {10.18260/1-2--21878}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -   Representation guidance with abstract and contextualized representation:    effects on engineering learning performance in technological literacy                                  educationIntroduction: Engineering instruction materials typically employ schematic diagrams, such aselectrical circuit diagrams, to represent engineering concepts and problems. The impact ofabstract diagrammatic representations using conventional engineering symbols vs.contextualized life-like depictions in diagrammatic representations has just recently begun toattract research interest (see e.g., Reisslein, Moreno, & Ozogul, J. Engineering Education, July2010). However, the existing studies have not considered the impact of explicit guidance(explanations) on the use of abstract symbols or life-like depictions to represent engineeringproblems. The present study examines the impact of guiding learners in the use of abstract orcontextualized representations of engineering problems.Method: The study had a 4 (representation conditions: abstract text with abstract diagrams (AA),contextualized text with contextualized diagram (CC), contextualized text with combinedcontextualized-abstract diagrams (CCA), and contextualized text with abstract diagrams (CA)) x2 (no guidance or guidance) design. Participants were a total of 195 undergraduate psychologystudents, who were learning basic electrical circuit analysis in the context of technologicalliteracy education. Instruction was provided by a computer-based module teaching the analysisof parallel electrical circuits using the respective combination of representation and guidance/noguidance on the representation of the electrical circuit components. Learning was measured witha near-transfer problem solving posttest that required the subjects to transfer the acquiredelectrical circuit analysis skills to a novel set of problem posed in contextualized form (i.e., life-like settings).Results: An initial ANOVA on pretest scores showed no significant differences among groups.A 2x4 ANOVA on the near-transfer posttest scores indicated that while there was no significantmain effect of representation type, nor a significant main effect of guidance, there was amarginally significant interaction between the representation and guidance factors, F(3, 187) =2.22, p = .09, ηp2 = .03. Separate independent sample t-tests among the eight conditions revealedthe following differences: First, among the conditions without guidance, the AA representationhad significantly higher near-transfer posttest scores compared to the CC representation, t (47) =2.73, p = .009, and compared to the CA representation, t (45) = 2.79, p = .008. Next, the CCrepresentation with guidance significantly outperformed the CC representation without guidance,t (48) = 2.12, p = .04. No other differences were found.Discussion: The results for the conditions without guidance replicate recent results obtained withhigh school students learning basic electrical circuit analysis (Reisslein, Moreno, & Ozogul, J.Engineering Education, July 2010). Taken together, the results for the present study and theReisslein et al. (2010) study indicate that although novices to engineering (such as high schoolstudents and undergraduate non-engineering majors) are unfamiliar with the abstract engineeringsymbols, they learn better with abstract symbol representations than with representations withlife-like depictions of engineering system components.       Turning to the effect of guidance, the main focus on this study, the results indicate thatthe contextualized (CC) representation which employed life-like depictions of engineeringsystems, e.g., the life-like image of a battery and light bulb in an electrical circuit, benefittedsignificantly from explicit explanation of this contextualized representation of the circuitcomponents. In contrast, the abstract representation (AA) did not benefit from explicitexplanation of the abstract representation, e.g., voltage source symbol and resistor symbol. Thisinitially counterintuitive result indicates that novice engineering learners readily assimilate theabstract engineering symbols and their transfer of problem solving skills to novel problems is notaided by explicit explanation of the use of the abstract representation. On the other hand, thelearners in the contextualized representation condition benefitted significantly from explicitexplanation of the use of the life-like depictions to represent electrical circuit components.Apparently, by making the representation of the circuit components more explicit theseexplanations aided in generating problem solving schemata that allowed the learners then tomore effectively transfer their problem solving skill to novel contextualized problem settings.
AU  - Gamze Ozogul
AU  - Amy M. Johnson
AU  - Martin Reisslein
AU  - Kirsten R. Butcher
CY  - San Antonio, Texas
DA  - 2012/06/10
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Representation Guidance with Abstract and Contextualized Representation: Effects on Engineering Learning Performance in Technological Literacy Education
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/21878
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--21878
ER  -