Grounding concept in percept: Learning physics experientially in multi-user virtual worlds

Abstract

Despite almost 25 years of research related to "misconceptions" in science education, students today still widely hold erroneous beliefs about natural phenomena and continue to engage in intuitive forms of pseudo-scientific reasoning. In this paper, we stress the importance of grounding concept in percept when students engage learning. We appeal to Kolb's experiential learning theory to guide the design of C-VISions, a collaborative learning environment that provides experientially grounded learning. We report partial results from an empirical study of three students learning kinematics in C-VISions, presenting some quantitative as well as qualitative findings. We discuss our findings in relation to the pervasive misconception referred to in the literature as "V-F reasoning." We conclude by pointing to ongoing research to develop pedagogical agent support in C-VISions to complete the conception of experiential learning advocated here.