Effect of students’ investigative experiments on students’ recognition of interference and diffraction patterns: An eye-tracking study

Sušac, Ana; Planinić, Maja; Bubić, Andreja; Jeličić, Katarina; Ivanjek, Lana; Cvenić, Karolina Matejak; Palmović, Marijan

doi:10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.010110

Cited by 16 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Participants solved seven multiple-choice questions on interference and diffraction patterns used in previous studies with high school students [21]. The questions are given in the appendix.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The above studies have addressed various aspects of the student's understanding of the interference, diffraction, and polarization of light. In two recent studies, we focused on high school students' recognition of typical interference and diffraction patterns [20,21]. In addition to standard testing, we used eye tracking to investigate the visual attention of students during task performance.…”

Section: Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this context, eye-tracking data showed that students who identified patterns correctly attended more the correct pattern than other options. In the second study, we explored the effects of students' hands-on experiments on their recognition of interference and diffraction patterns [21]. Students who performed investigative experiments in wave optics had higher scores than their peers in the control group.…”

Section: Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

University students’ recognition of typical wave optics patterns

Susac,

Küchemann,

Planinic

et al. 2024

Eur. J. Phys.

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The recognition and distinction of typical interference and diffraction patterns are among the expected learning outcomes of studying wave optics. Previous studies have reported high school students’ difficulties with this task. In this study, we investigated university students’ ability to distinguish typical wave optics patterns obtained by the double slit, single slit, and diffraction grating. We also used eye tracking to obtain an insight into the distribution of students’ visual attention during the task. The results showed that university students had similar difficulties in recognizing wave optics patterns as high school students. They mostly struggled with identification of the double-slit interference patterns and diffraction grating patterns of monochromatic light while they were more successful in recognition of the diffraction pattern of white light on an optical grating and single-slit diffraction patterns. The eye-tracking data also revealed that students spent more time attending colourful than grey patterns in questions regarding diffraction of white light on an optical grating, thus suggesting that they were aware that the diffraction grating separates white light into colours. In questions regarding monochromatic light patterns, students overall mostly attended the single-slit diffraction pattern probably because of its distinct central maximum. Furthermore, the longer fixation duration for patterns compared to the text implies that students found it easier to extract information from the text than from the patterns. No prior research has compared the number of transitions during problem solving with the accuracy of the answers. In this study, we observed that students who incorrectly solved a task demonstrated a significantly higher number of gaze transitions between the question and the options, as well as among different options. The results of this study indicate that the recognition of typical wave optics patterns is also difficult for university students, thus suggesting that more attention should be paid to systematic observation and identification of key features of basic wave optics phenomena in lecture demonstrations and student laboratories.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

University students’ recognition of typical wave optics patterns

Susac,

Küchemann,

Planinic

et al. 2024

Eur. J. Phys.

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“…Chen et al (2014) found that it is easier and faster to identify crucial areas in a picture than in text while Chen and She (2020) found that pictorial representation helped students to better understand electricity concepts compared to a textual representation. However, it is worth noting that even pictorial representations can contain complex information that is not always easy to understand, as was demonstrated in a study on the recognition of pictorial representation of interference and diffraction patterns in wave optics (Susac et al, 2020(Susac et al, , 2021. These studies found that this was a very demanding item for students, not a mere recall of a remembered pattern, thus indicating that pictorial representations can sometimes be challenging to grasp.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking information from multiple representations: an eye-tracking study

Susac,

Planinic,

Bubic

et al. 2023

Front. Educ.

Self Cite

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Eye tracking can provide valuable insights into how students use different representations to solve problems and can be a useful tool for measuring the integration of information from multiple representations. In this study, we measured the eye movements of 60 university students while solving two PISA items that contain graphs taken from mathematics and science assessments with the aim of studying the difference in visual attention between students who correctly and incorrectly identify graphs from a verbal description. We were particularly interested in the differences in the integration of information from different representations (text, graphs, and picture) between students who were successful or unsuccessful in solving items. The results suggest that students who solved the items correctly tend to solve the items longer than their counterparts who did not solve the items correctly. Analysis of eye tracking data suggests that students who solved science item correctly analyzed the graph for significantly longer time and had significantly longer average fixation time. This finding suggests that a careful analysis of graphs is crucial for the correct solution of PISA items used in this study. Furthermore, the results showed that students who solved the mathematics item correctly had significantly higher number of transitions between graphs and picture, which indicates a greater integration of information from two different representations. This indicates that these types of items require a lot of time and effort to complete, probably because solving them requires a lot of steps, which is cognitively demanding. We also found that the average fixation durations for different representations may vary for different items, indicating that it is not always equally difficult to extract necessary information from different types of representations. The results of this study suggest that instructors may be able to improve their teaching methods by considering the importance of individual representations (e.g., texts, graphs, and pictures) and the integration of information from multiple sources.

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“…Regardless of the importance of conducting the single-slit experiment in understanding diffraction, students are limited to making measurements on a screen placed some meters away from the slit, often leaving the comprehension of the phenomenon behind and failing to observe important features of particular diffraction patterns and identify the differences between them 16 . Moreover, the paradigm jump from geometrical optics to wave optics is not easily grasped; since these demonstrations use a geometric approach to obtain the measurements and wavelengths, the concept that diffraction is a direct consequence of the wave nature of light is not fully understood 17,18 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond maxima and minima: a hands-on approach for undergraduate teaching of diffraction

Valencia¹,

Gómez-Ramírez

Tobon-Maya

et al. 2023

Seventeenth Conference on Education and Training in Optics and Photonics: ETOP 2023

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Since the discovery of the wave behavior of light, diffraction has been a cornerstone in optics. The teaching of the diffraction theory has been usually done theoretically based on a mathematical approach that could hinder the understanding of the physical phenomena. In this work, the simplicity in the architecture of an accessible, cost-effective, and 3D-printed digital lensless holographic microscope is used as an educational tool to study the diffraction theory by providing experimental validations of the phenomena for undergraduate students. The recording and reconstruction steps of the lensless holographic technique take the students to the bidirectionally of the diffraction phenomena in a completely hands-on approach. The integration of the theory with an accessible experimental setup generates an innovative way of teaching the diffraction phenomena in a classroom.

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Effect of students’ investigative experiments on students’ recognition of interference and diffraction patterns: An eye-tracking study

Cited by 16 publications

References 42 publications

University students’ recognition of typical wave optics patterns

University students’ recognition of typical wave optics patterns

Linking information from multiple representations: an eye-tracking study

Beyond maxima and minima: a hands-on approach for undergraduate teaching of diffraction

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