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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 12, Issue 2, Article 9 (Dec., 2011) |
Electrochemistry is the sixth chapter in the Malaysian Chemistry syllabus for secondary schools. This chapter is taught at the upper secondary level for students in the science stream. Electrochemistry is a study of inter-conversion of chemical energy and electrical energy that occurs in electrolytic and voltaic cell. Previous studies (Bojczuk, 1982; Lee & Kamisah, 2010; Lin et al., 2002; Roziah, 2005) showed that the topic is difficult to learn because the concepts are abstract. Students often encounter misconceptions in the learning of this topic (Garnett & Hackling, 1993; Garnett & Treagust, 1992; Garnett, Garnett & Hackling, 1995; Karsli & Çalik 2012; Lee & Mohammad Yusof, 2009; Lee, 2008; Lin et al., 2002; Sanger & Greenbowe, 1997a; Sanger & Greenbowe, 1997b). Macroscopically, students need to study the concepts of electrolytes and non-electrolytes, the electrolysis process and voltaic cells. Microscopically, they need to understand the movement of ions and electrons during the electrolysis process. Besides that, they need to transform the process into chemical formulae and equations symbolically. Students face difficulties in understanding the abstract chemical processes especially at the microscopic and symbolic levels (Garnett & Hackling, 1993; Garnett & Treagust, 1992; Garnett et al., 1995; Karsli & Çalik 2012; Lee & Mohammad Yusof, 2009; Lee, 2008; Lin et al., 2002; Sanger & Greenbowe, 1997a; Sanger & Greenbowe, 1997b).
Chemistry is a visual science (Wu & Shah, 2004). A major problem for students in learning abstract chemistry topics is their inability to visualize the concepts, which is to form a mental image or picture in the mind (Lerman, 2001). Studies (Doymus, 2010; Gois & Giordan, 2009; Karsli & Çalik 2012; Lerman & Morton, 2009) have been carried out and results showed that animation and simulation using ICT can help students to visualize and hence enhance their understanding in learning abstract chemistry topics. Therefore, designing instructions using multimedia through World Wide Web, CD-ROMs, DVD and virtual reality becomes a trend in this era of ICT.
Although the use of multimedia modules is able to assist students in visualizing the abstract concepts, the rate of using multimedia modules in the schools is still very low (Lee & Kamisah, 2010). Teachers are not interested in using the modules available in the market in the learning process because they find that these modules are too formal, not interesting and do not follow the syllabus (Norsiati, 2008; Roziah, 2005). Furthermore, students lack sufficient metacognitive awareness and comprehension monitoring skill to make effective choices (Hill & Hannafin, 2001; Land, 2000). They lack the skills to find, process and use information and ideas. Students as novice learners do not always make connections to prior knowledge or everyday experiences in ways that are productive for learning (Land, 2000). As a result, Pedagogical Agents (PAs) are designed to facilitate learning in computer-mediated learning environments (Chou, Chan & Lin, 2003; Craig, Gholson & Driscoll, 2002; Johnson, Rickel & Lester, 2000; Moundridou & Virvou, 2002; Predinger, Saeyor & Ishizuka, n.d., Slater, 2000). The use of PAs in the interactive multimedia module in this study makes the module different from the modules available in the market.
PAs are animated life-like characters that show human characteristics in terms of appearance such as changes in facial expressions, gestures and body movements when interacting with the users. Users can communicate with the agent via speech or on-screen text. The appearance of PAs is varied in terms of gender (male or female), realism (cartoon and realistic) and ethnicity (African-American and Caucasian) (Baylor, 2005). Normally, PAs are designed as experts (Baylor, 2005; Baylor & Kim, 2004; Chou et al., 2003; Hayes-Roth, Maldonado & Moraes, 2002; Kim, Baylor & PALS Group, 2006; Kizilkaya & Askar, 2008; Moreno, Mayer & Lester, 2000; Moreno & Mayer, 2005) who are knowledgeable in specific areas to provide guidance to students. However, there are also PAs which act as co-learners (Chou et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2006; Maldonado & Hayes-Roth, 2004; Maldonado et al., 2005; Xiao, Stasko & Catrambone, 2004) or motivators (Baylor, 2005; Baylor & Kim, 2004; Kizilkaya & Askar, 2008). The co-learners or motivators accompany the students, encourage and motivate them to be involved in the learning process.
PAs in multimedia module serve to enhance students' metacognitive awareness of what they know and what they should know for the topic being studied. One strategy for providing metacognitive guidance involves embedding support, or scaffolds for procedural, strategic, or metacognitive control (Land, 2000). This guidance and support is provided by the PAs in the module. PAs could make learners aware of the opportunities presented to them, provide advice for the learners on the tools to be used, and explain the functionalities of the tools in an open learning environment (Clarebout & Elen, 2007).
Studies abroad were carried out by several research groups using PAs in multimedia software for a variety of subjects such as environmental sciences (Moreno & Mayer, 2000), language (Maldonado et al., 2005; Predinger et al., n.d.), ecosystem (Biswas et al., 2004), art (Hayes-Roth et al., 2002), ecology (Clarebout & Elen, 2007), mathematics (Kim et al., 2006; Atkinson, 2002) and space (Kizilkaya & Askar, 2008). In Malaysia, studies relating to PAs have been done in Islamic Education (Mohd Feham, 2006) and Physics Education (Farah et al., 2008; Nabila Akbal et al., 2008). Studies conducted by Kirk (2008) and Baylor (2005) give students the freedom to choose their preferred PAs to assist them in the learning process. However, these agents were designed to differ only in terms of appearance (the image of an anthropomorphic pig, a green alien, and a robot), gender (male and female), ethnicity (African-American and Caucasian) and realism (real or cartoon), but were similar in terms of role. Studies on electrochemistry and the freedom to choose different roles of PAs still cannot be found. Hence, an interactive multimedia module with pedagogical agents (IMMPA) with different roles of PAs, named EC Lab was developed in order to assist students in the learning of Electrochemistry.
