| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立嘉義大學 === 教育科技研究所 === 96 === The purpose of the study was to realize, when learning from computer simulations, how cognitive load and spatial ability had an impact on high school students’ understanding of the principles of residential wiring systems. This research adopts a quasi-experimental research design. The participants were 169 eleventh grade students from urban areas in southern Taiwan. Students in the experimental group used a series of computer simulations while students in control group received lectures and demonstrations from the instructor to learn residential wiring systems. Students’ score gained from electricity comprehension test, residential wiring system comprehension test were used as the dependent variables while their cognitive load questionnaire and spatial ability test results were used as the independent variables. Students spent five weeks covering ten hours of class periods for this study. Further, in the experimental group, student interactions with either partners or computer were audio- and video-taped in order to understand in-depth how the computer simulations affected student interactions and further influenced their understanding.
The findings of the study are first, students using computer simulations learned significantly better than did the control group students in residential wiring system concept learning . Second, students in experimental group encountered higher cognitive load than did the control group students. Third, experimental students’ spatial ability levels did not have an impact on their understanding of residential wiring systems in simulation-based concept learning environments. And last, computers were found to be an effective tool that facilitates communications, cooperative learning facilitates group members interactions.
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