Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality
Multivariable calculus is a subject undertaken by engineering students as a core module at the freshman level. One of the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) in multivariable calculus is to gain an intuition for visualizing three-dimensional surfaces and deducing their properties. For students to visu...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169737 |
| _version_ | 1826128048606412800 |
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| author | Cheong, Kang Hao Chen, Jacob Shihang Kang, Keegan Yeo, Darren J. |
| author2 | School of Social Sciences |
| author_facet | School of Social Sciences Cheong, Kang Hao Chen, Jacob Shihang Kang, Keegan Yeo, Darren J. |
| author_sort | Cheong, Kang Hao |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Multivariable calculus is a subject undertaken by engineering students as a core module at the freshman level. One of the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) in multivariable calculus is to gain an intuition for visualizing three-dimensional surfaces and deducing their properties. For students to visualize more complex multivariable calculus concepts, a virtual reality (VR) application has been created. Tapping on existing infrastructures, we investigate the effectiveness of visualization through VR usage vis-à-vis a two-dimensional digital screen. We have conducted a controlled trial on a group of (Formula presented.) students across two groups. The first group (control group) comprises students who participated in an online quiz (as a baseline test). The second group (treatment group) is given two sets of tests, the first is the same baseline test that the control group participated in, before administering the test questions on the VR platform (termed the treatment test) to the same group of students. Our analysis reveals that students, in general, perform better on questions pertaining to the identification of the sign of partial derivatives in the treatment test, but for other intended learning outcomes linked to other questions, students have performance similar to the baseline test. Furthermore, low-progress students in the treatment group exhibited improvement after the treatment. Our work here has the potential to be developed into a future-ready smart classroom through VR usage. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T07:18:30Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/169737 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T07:18:30Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1697372023-08-06T15:30:26Z Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality Cheong, Kang Hao Chen, Jacob Shihang Kang, Keegan Yeo, Darren J. School of Social Sciences Social sciences::Psychology Virtual Reality Education Development Multivariable calculus is a subject undertaken by engineering students as a core module at the freshman level. One of the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) in multivariable calculus is to gain an intuition for visualizing three-dimensional surfaces and deducing their properties. For students to visualize more complex multivariable calculus concepts, a virtual reality (VR) application has been created. Tapping on existing infrastructures, we investigate the effectiveness of visualization through VR usage vis-à-vis a two-dimensional digital screen. We have conducted a controlled trial on a group of (Formula presented.) students across two groups. The first group (control group) comprises students who participated in an online quiz (as a baseline test). The second group (treatment group) is given two sets of tests, the first is the same baseline test that the control group participated in, before administering the test questions on the VR platform (termed the treatment test) to the same group of students. Our analysis reveals that students, in general, perform better on questions pertaining to the identification of the sign of partial derivatives in the treatment test, but for other intended learning outcomes linked to other questions, students have performance similar to the baseline test. Furthermore, low-progress students in the treatment group exhibited improvement after the treatment. Our work here has the potential to be developed into a future-ready smart classroom through VR usage. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version Kang Hao Cheong was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) Tertiary Education Research Fund (Grant No. MOE2019-TRF-048). 2023-08-01T07:09:07Z 2023-08-01T07:09:07Z 2023 Journal Article Cheong, K. H., Chen, J. S., Kang, K. & Yeo, D. J. (2023). Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality. Mathematics, 11(4), 831-. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/math11040831 2227-7390 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169737 10.3390/math11040831 2-s2.0-85149048598 4 11 831 en MOE2019-TRF-048 Mathematics © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Social sciences::Psychology Virtual Reality Education Development Cheong, Kang Hao Chen, Jacob Shihang Kang, Keegan Yeo, Darren J. Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality |
| title | Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality |
| title_full | Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality |
| title_fullStr | Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality |
| title_full_unstemmed | Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality |
| title_short | Supporting students’ visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality |
| title_sort | supporting students visualization of multivariable calculus partial derivatives via virtual reality |
| topic | Social sciences::Psychology Virtual Reality Education Development |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169737 |
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