This study aims to examine the effectiveness of metacognitive scaffolding in different inquiry tasks related to optics. Two high school classes participated in this study. One class, the treatment group (n = 33), which integrated metacognitive prompts into the simulation-based inquiry, was compared to the other class, the control group (n = 34),…

In this article we propose an activity aimed at introductory students to help them understand the Stefan-Boltzmann and Wien's displacement laws. It only requires simple materials that are available at any school: an incandescent lamp, a variable dc energy supply, and a computer to run an interactive simulation of the blackbody spectrum.…

A study on the effect of the use of computer simulations (CS) on the acquisition of knowledge and cognitive load was undertaken with 104 Grade 11 learners in four schools in rural South Africa on the physics topic geometrical optics. Owing to the lack of resources a teacher-centred approach was followed in the use of computer simulations. The…

This study compared the educational effects of computer simulations developed in a hyper-realistic virtual environment with the educational effects of either traditional schematic simulations or a traditional optics laboratory. The virtual environment was constructed on the basis of Java applets complemented with a photorealistic visual output.…

The present study investigated whether computer assisted instruction was more effective than face-to-face instruction in increasing student success in physics. The study was conducted in the spring semester of 2006 at the Department of Science and Mathematics for Secondary Education at Hacettepe University. Seventy-eight freshman students from…