A Visualization-Based Approach to Engineering Kinematics Using Cognitive Models Available to Purchase

Visualization and spatial reasoning are integral to developing an understanding of contemporary sciences. They form the basis for understanding a wide variety of topics across science, mathematics and engineering, including molecular structures, topologies, motion and forces, and manufacturing processes. Within engineering, it can be argued that challenging and time consuming topics such as kinematics can be better taught by faculty, and hence better understood and appreciated by students, by advancing our understanding of human visualization and spatial reasoning and using this knowledge to develop computer-based visualization instruction in ways that maximize their effectiveness. The achievement of such a goal will require importing proven extant theories from other fields such as psychology, education, engineering and computer science. This paper presents the results of one such effort for teaching engineering kinematics. The motivation for this work can be found in cognitive science literature, where motion comprehension has been identified and studied as a mental task. Accordingly, a major task in doing this work involved the study of cognitive models of motion comprehension, and identifying key stages present in them. Mapping such key stages in motion comprehension on to kinematics domain, this paper presents the framework for the visual comprehension based pedagogical approach to kinematics. A web-based gear-trains tutor has been developed to demonstrate this concept. Results from the tests on a controlled population of engineering students are presented and the efficacy of a visual comprehension based approach as an instructional tool is discussed.