Comparing the effect of dynamic and static visualizations on eighth grade students' understanding of plate tectonics and earthquake concepts

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether static or dynamic visualizations are more effective on students' understanding. It compares instruction with static visualizations and instruction with dynamic visualizations which is designed to help teach plate tectonics and earthquake concepts to 8th grade students. A quasi-experimental design is implemented to 42 eighth grade students (control n=22, experimental n=20) in a public primary school in İstanbul. The experimental group received instruction with dynamic animations (animations) while the control group studied the same material with static pictures of the same animations. Student learning was investigated by the quantitative analysis of test measuring conceptual understanding and qualitative analysis of the classroom discourse. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test analysis shows that there is a statistical significance between pretest and posttest scores of the students in control and the experimental group. However, Mann-Whitney U Test result shows that there is no difference between the different types of visualizations with respect to students learning. Although there is no significant difference between two groups, qualitative analysis reveals that students in experimental group are more participant and ask more and complex questions during the classroom conversations.