The Effects on Students’ Conceptual Understanding of Electric Circuits of Introducing Virtual Manipulatives Within a Physical Manipulatives-Oriented Curriculum

This study investigates whether Virtual Manipulatives (VM) within a Physical Manipulatives (PM)-oriented curriculum affect conceptual understanding of electric circuits and related experimentation processes. A pre–post comparison study randomly assigned 194 undergraduates in an introductory physics course to one of five conditions: three experimental conditions with different PM and VM sequences and two control conditions with only PM or VM....