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Effect of display platforms on spatial knowledge acquisition and engagement: an evaluation with 3D geometry visualizations

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Abstract

With the recent rapid development of display technologies, interactive visualizations have become increasingly important to enhance content exploration in various domains, including learning. Desktop displays, mobile tablet multi-touch displays, and, more recently, virtual reality head-mounted displays have become readily accessible devices for interacting with visualizations. Despite their widespread use, it is still unclear how the type of device can influence the presentation of, interaction with, and learning from interactive visualizations. In this research, we have designed and conducted an experiment to evaluate the effects of these types of devices in the exploration of mathematical visualizations. An interactive visualization tool is designed and implemented with 3D geometry as our testbed. Our goal is to gain a better understanding of the effects of device types on supporting analytical reasoning with interactive visualizations. In general, our results indicate that the tool in all three types of devices can be equally efficient and engaging in interactive learning activities. We discuss the findings and suggestions based on the experiment results in the discussion.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported in part by Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) Key Special Fund (#KSF-A-03) and XJTLU Research Development Fund (#RDF-19-02-11 and #RDF-17-01-54.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA

    Feiyu Lu

  2. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Vijayakumar Nanjappan

  3. Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA

    Paul Parsons

  4. Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China

    Lingyun Yu & Hai-Ning Liang

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  1. Feiyu Lu
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Correspondence to Hai-Ning Liang.

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A Appendix

A Appendix

1.1 A.1 Semi-structured interview questions

  • What do you like/dislike about using (Desktop/Tablet/VR) to interact with the visualizations?

  • What do you like/dislike about using (Desktop/Tablet/VR) to solve (Landmark/Route/Survey) questions?

  • What do you dislike about using (STM/Dot/Rotate/Enlarge/Dynamic-linking) function to interact with the visualizations?

1.2 A.2 Sample questions in pre/post-questionnaires for each question type

See Figures 11, 12 and 13.

Fig. 11
figure 11

Sample question for Landmark knowledge

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Fig. 12
figure 12

Sample question for Route knowledge

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Fig. 13
figure 13

Sample question for Survey knowledge

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Lu, F., Nanjappan, V., Parsons, P. et al. Effect of display platforms on spatial knowledge acquisition and engagement: an evaluation with 3D geometry visualizations. J Vis 26, 667–686 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-022-00889-w

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