“There Was No Green Tick”: Discovering the Functions of a Widget in a Joint Problem-Solving Activity and the Consequences for the Participants’ Discovering Process

Abstract

In recent years, tangible user interfaces (TUI) have gained in popularity in educational contexts, among others to implement problem-solving and discovery learning science activities. In the context of an interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration, we conducted a multimodal EMCA-based video user study involving a TUI-mediated bicycle mechanics simulation. This article focusses on the discovering work of a group of three students with regard to a particular tangible object (a red button), designed to support participants engagement with the underlying physics aspects and its consequences with regard to their engagement with the targeted mechanics aspects.