Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations
written by
Diana Berenice López-Tavares, Katherine Perkins, Sam Reid, Michael Kauzmann, and Carlos Aguirre-Vélez
Student engagement with interactive simulations is affected by the prompts and activities teachers choose to couple with such simulations. In this early work, we introduce a prototype dashboard to visualize and evaluate student engagement generated by activities that leverage interactive simulations. Engagement in this study is gauged by factors such as the time spent in the activity, the rate and pattern of clicks, and the simulation elements used by students. The dashboard employs several approaches to visualize student mouse activity data, displaying either individual student interactions or aggregated information of an entire group. To test the dashboard's usability, we evaluate student engagement resulting from a homework activity that focused on factors that affect stored energy in a capacitor and used the PhET simulation "Capacitor Lab: Basics". The results show that the dashboard's visualizations help provide a general idea of how students interact, describe their engagement, and are a promising tool for guiding activity design.
Physics Education Research Conference 2018
Part of the PER Conference series
Washington, DC: August 1-2, 2018
This material is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the published article's author(s), title, proceedings citation, and DOI.
<a href="https://www.per-central.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=14818">López-Tavares, D, K. Perkins, S. Reid, M. Kauzmann, and C. Aguirre-Vélez. "Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations." Paper presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018.</a>
D. López-Tavares, K. Perkins, S. Reid, M. Kauzmann, and C. Aguirre-Vélez, , presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC, 2018, WWW Document, (https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14818&DocID=4965).
D. López-Tavares, K. Perkins, S. Reid, M. Kauzmann, and C. Aguirre-Vélez, Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC, 2018, <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14818&DocID=4965>.
López-Tavares, D., Perkins, K., Reid, S., Kauzmann, M., & Aguirre-Vélez, C. (2018, August 1-2). Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations. Paper presented at Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC. Retrieved May 8, 2025, from https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14818&DocID=4965
López-Tavares, D, K. Perkins, S. Reid, M. Kauzmann, and C. Aguirre-Vélez. "Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations." Paper presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018. https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14818&DocID=4965 (accessed 8 May 2025).
López-Tavares, Diana Berenice, Katherine Perkins, Sam Reid, Michael Kauzmann, and Carlos Aguirre-Vélez. "Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations." Physics Education Research Conference 2018. Washington, DC: 2018. of PER Conference. 8 May 2025 <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14818&DocID=4965>.
@inproceedings{
Author = "Diana Berenice López-Tavares and Katherine Perkins and Sam Reid and Michael Kauzmann and Carlos Aguirre-Vélez",
Title = {Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations},
BookTitle = {Physics Education Research Conference 2018},
Address = {Washington, DC},
Series = {PER Conference},
Month = {August 1-2},
Year = {2018}
}
%A Diana Berenice López-Tavares %A Katherine Perkins %A Sam Reid %A Michael Kauzmann %A Carlos Aguirre-Vélez %T Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations %S PER Conference %D August 1-2 2018 %C Washington, DC %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14818&DocID=4965 %O Physics Education Research Conference 2018 %O August 1-2 %O application/pdf
%0 Conference Proceedings %A López-Tavares, Diana Berenice %A Perkins, Katherine %A Reid, Sam %A Kauzmann, Michael %A Aguirre-Vélez, Carlos %D August 1-2 2018 %T Dashboard to evaluate student engagement with interactive simulations %B Physics Education Research Conference 2018 %C Washington, DC %S PER Conference %8 August 1-2 %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14818&DocID=4965
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