The Effects of Physical and Virtual Manipulatives on Students’ Conceptual Learning About Pulleys

Abstract: With computers becoming more ubiquitous in our daily lives and in our classrooms, questions of how students interact and learn with physical experiments and computer simulations are central in science education. We investigated how students ’ ideas about pulleys were influenced by the use of physical and virtual manipulatives. We found that there were advantages for each type of manipulative, and that virtual and physical manipulatives helped students develop correct understandings of different concepts. We also found that the order the manipulatives were used affected student learning, with students who used real pulleys before the simulation achieving higher scores on questions having to do with effort force, the distance the rope is pulled, and mechanical advantage. Introduction & Background Laboratory experiments play a critical role in furthering scientists ’ understandings of how the universe works, and in light of this importance, it is no wonder that educators have historically placed high value on laboratory experiences in science classrooms. However, due to practical concerns of procuring laboratory equipment