Investigating the effectiveness of animations in exploring learning a case study in a Chemical Engineering course

• Main Author: Ma, Karen
• Other Authors: Case, Jennifer
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cape Town 2014
• Subjects: Chemical Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10614

Includes abstract. === Includes bibliographical references. === Using technology in the classroom environment has become increasingly popular among educators. One way of employing technology is using instructional animations to teach concepts, favoured owing to their ability to depict changes in object over time. Animations are commonly believed to increase motivation and foster learning, but there is little empirical evidence for this belief. Some researchers have found that animations can be effective; others, however, show that animations have the same effect as a combination of static pictures and text. Some have even showed that animations could actually have negative effects on student learning. A lecturer at the University of Cape Town had planned to use animations in his third year undergraduate Chemical Engineering Course in Reactor Design. This became the context for the present study which investigated the effectiveness of these animations for promoting conceptual understanding as well as exploring students' perspective on learning from animations as well as students' enjoyment level. A quasi-experimental case study was conducted over four topics in Reactor Design and one topic was repeated. Each investigation was on one topic, and in each investigation, the Reactor Design class was split so that the student either attended a traditional lecture or an animation lecture. The two groups of students were used to compare the impact of animations on student learning.