The Effect of Student-Constructed Animations versus Storyboards on Students' Mental Rotation Ability, Equilibrium Content Knowledge, and Attitudes
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This study evaluated how general chemistry students' mental rotation abilities, knowledge of physical and chemical equilibrium, and attitudes were affected by the use of one of two different visualization assignments. One class created storyboards with paper and pencil and the other created computer animations with the ChemSense computer program. Both classes showed significant gains in mental rotation abilities and content knowledge, but there was no difference between treatments. No significant differences in content knowledge scores were found between the males and females in the study. However, male students significantly gained in mental rotation abilities over females. In the attitude survey, students believed the activities helped them learn equilibrium content. Both males and females regardless of treatment indicated that the visualization assignments were generally easy as opposed to hard to construct, but females indicated this fact significantly more so than the males. Instructors should be encouraged to use either method to increase mental rotation ability and help with equilibrium understanding. 2013 American Chemical Society.