Martina Rau

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Rau

First Name

Martina

ORCID

0000-0001-7204-3403

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09812 - Rau, Martina / Rau, Martina

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Publications 1 - 10 of 47

Interleaved practice in multi-dimensional learning tasks: Which dimension should we interleave?
Rau, Martina; Aleven, Vincent; Rummel, Nikol (2013)
Learning and Instruction
Research shows that multiple representations can enhance student learning. Many curricula use multiple representations across multiple task types. The temporal sequence of representations and task types is likely to impact student learning. Research on contextual interference shows that interleaving learning tasks leads to better learning results than blocked practice, but this research has not investigated whether it matters on which dimension we interleave learning tasks. Many educational materials include multiple task types and multiple representations. Should we interleave representations or task types? We conducted a classroom experiment to investigate the effects of interleaving task types (while blocking representations) and interleaving representations (while blocking task types). The participants (158 5th- and 6th-graders) worked with a corresponding version of an intelligent tutoring system for fractions. Our results show an advantage for interleaving task types over interleaving representations. These results extend prior work on contextual interference by showing that this effect is sensitive to the dimension being interleaved. We also extend the literature on learning with multiple representations by investigating the effect of interleaved practice with different representations. The results provide guidance to designers of complex curricula.
Editorial: ChatGPT and other generative AI tools
Küchemann, Stefan; Rau, Martina; Neumann, Knut; et al. (2025)
Frontiers in Psychology
Inclusive Movement: Rethinking Physical Engagement in Science Classrooms
Müller, Charlotte H.; Paksoy, Ipek; Wang, Fan; et al. (2025)
Science education includes many physical learning activities designed to support learning. Students inevitably move when they participate in laboratory experiments, excursions, or if they are animated to move in a certain way that is supposed to promote learning. However, most research focuses on normative physical bodies and interpersonal relationships and thus unintentionally or implicitly excludes many students who are unwilling to perform certain actions as they may feel uncomfortable doing so. For instance, one may be an introvert and/or afraid of being observed. Some learners may have body-related trauma that makes them deeply distressed with certain activities, and others might simply be less athletic or less confident in taking up space than their peers. Finally, some bodies may be prohibited from performing certain actions due to physical disabilities. In this exploratory seminar, we invite researchers and educators who design physical activities of any form for students. Together, we want to explore what we need to know about students, and their bodies, for the design process, and what we can offer to students who might not be comfortable with the designed activity without isolating them.
Adaptive support for representational competencies during technology-based problem solving in chemistry
Rau, Martina; Zahn, Miranda; Misback, Edward; et al. (2021)
Journal of the Learning Sciences
Background: A key aspect of STEM learning is the use of visual representations for problem solving. To successfully use visuals, students need to make sense of how they show concepts and to fluently perceive domain-relevan information in them. Adding support for sense making and perceptual fluency to problem-solving activities enhances students’ learning of content knowledge. However, students need different types of representational-competency supports, depending on their prior knowledge. This suggests that adaptively assigning students to sense-makingand perceptual-fluency support might be more effective than assigning all students to the same sequence of these supports. Method: We tested this hypothesis in an experiment with 44 undergraduate students in a chemistry course. Students were randomly assigned to a ten-week sequence of problem-solving activities that either provided a fixed sequence of sense-making support and perceptual-fluency support or adaptively assigned these supports based on students’ problem-solving interactions. Findings: Results show that adaptive representational-competency supports reduced students’ confusion and mistakes during problem solving while increasing their learning of content knowledge. Contribution: Our study is the first to show that adaptive support for representational competencies can significantly enhance learning of content knowledge. Given the pervasiveness of visuals, our results may inform general STEM instruction.
Heuristic and didactic metaphors in chemistry education: A systematic review
Müller, Charlotte H.; Rau, Martina (2024)
Chemistry education research focuses to a large part on the question of how we make sense of imperceptible concepts. How can we understand a phenomenon that is not experientable? The research program embodied cognition argues that all concepts are grounded in (mapped to) personally meaningful experiences (Shapiro, 2019) and that therefore, grounding is a crucial mechanism that should be considered and supported in the classroom (Nathan, 2022). Stated differently, concepts are understood via metaphors that map their characteristics to ones of a familiar source domain. Niebert and colleagues argued that many science-specific misconceptions originate in a mismapping between such a source and target domain (Niebert et al., 2012). They suggest that the difference between metaphors employed by novices and experts may inform the design of representations that support the transition from the former to the latter. This warrants a detailed understanding of metaphors present in chemistry-specific terminology as well as chemistry teaching generally. We are building on the following reviews. First, Amin (2015) reviewed the connections of conceptual metaphor research and conceptual change research, providing insights into future directions and implications for practice. He thereby situated metaphor research more centrally within the realm of educational science. Recently, Amin has further reviewed metaphor research targeting the concept Energy (Amin, 2020). Finally, Barrios (2021) conducted a hermeneutic literature review on metaphor research targeting STEM and STEM education. He provides a broad overview of studies targeting conceptual metaphors, excellently capturing historical and recent significant studies. However, due to the broad focus, Barrios’ review does not examine the designs, strengths, and weaknesses of these studies in detail. We present a focused systematic review of chemistry-specific interventions, discussing designs, types of metaphors (heuristic metaphors inherent to the domain versus didactic metaphors designed for educational purposes) and implications for chemistry education (Moher et al., 2009).
Supporting students in making sense of connections and in becoming perceptually fluent in making connections among multiple graphical representations
Rau, Martina; Aleven, Vincent; Rummel, Nikol (2017)
Journal of Educational Psychology
Prior research shows that multiple representations can enhance learning, provided that students make connections among them. We hypothesized that support for connection making is most effective in enhancing learning of domain knowledge if it helps students both in making sense of these connections and in becoming perceptually fluent in making connections. We tested this hypothesis in an experiment with 428 4th- and 5th-grade students who worked with different versions of an intelligent tutoring system for fractions learning. Results did not show main effects for sense-making or fluency-building support but an interaction effect, such that a combination of sense-making and fluency-building support is most effective in enhancing fractions knowledge. Causal path analysis of log data from the system shows that sense-making support enhances students’ benefit from fluency-building support, but fluency-building support does not enhance their benefit from sense-making support. Our results suggest that both understanding of connections and perceptual fluency in connection making are critical aspects of learning of domain knowledge with multiple graphical representations. Findings from the causal path analysis lead to the testable prediction that instruction should provide sense-making support and fluency-building support for connection making.
Sequencing support for sense making and perceptual induction of connections among multiple visual representations
Rau, Martina (2018)
Journal of Educational Psychology
Making connections among multiple visual representations is key to students’ learning. This article considers two learning processes involved in connection making: explicit sense making of connections and implicit perceptual induction of connections. Instructional interventions support these processes via different problem types: sense-making problems ask students to verbally explain connections, whereas perceptual-induction problems ask students to quickly categorize numerous representations. Prior research shows that sense-making and perceptual-induction problems enhance students’ learning of domain knowledge—but only if both problem types are combined. Thus, one must ask whether the ability to make sense of connections enhances students’ ability to perceptually induce connections, or vice versa, and, consequently, which problem type students should receive first. This article investigates these questions in the context of undergraduate chemistry. Three experiments with 691 students compare instructional sequences that provide sense-making problems first or perceptual-induction problems first. Effects are assessed on problem-solving performance during the intervention and on chemistry knowledge learning gains after the intervention. Causal path analyses test whether working on sense-making problems first enhances (or impedes) students’ learning from subsequent perceptual-induction problems and vice versa. Results show that sequence interacts with prior chemistry knowledge: High prior-knowledge students show higher learning gains if they receive sense-making problems first. Low-prior-knowledge students show higher learning gains if they receive perceptual-induction problems first. Causal path analyses suggest that sense-making problems enhance students’ learning from subsequent perceptual-induction problems more so than the other way around. However, costs of switching between problem types interfere with low-prior-knowledge students’ ability to take advantage of this effect.
Teaching advanced surgical anatomy with visual representations: comparing perceptual fluency and sense making
Stahl, Christopher C.; Rau, Martina; Greenberg, Jacob A. (2023)
Instructional Science
Combinations of perceptual fluency and sense-making competencies contribute synergistically to learning gains in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. However, instructional principles depend on the target of instruction, and in many fields, the targets of instruction are quite different from undergraduate STEM education. Professional learning often involves the application of previously acquired conceptual knowledge in a perceptually complex reality. This paper focuses on the field of surgery, specifically the recognition of surgical anatomy, in which the target of instruction is perceptual ability rather than conceptual knowledge. We conducted two experiments in which 42 and 44 surgical trainees participated in perceptual-fluency and sense-making interventions, followed by tests of their ability to recognize surgical anatomy in real operative images. The results showed that perceptual-fluency interventions contributed to gains in perceptual knowledge relating to surgical anatomy, whereas sense-making interventions did not. We discuss our findings in terms of alignment between instructional design and instructional goals, and the application of advances in learning sciences to adult learning of complex skills.
Cognitive Task Analysis for Implicit Knowledge About Visual Representations With Similarity Learning Methods
Mason, Blake; Rau, Martina; Nowak, Robert (2019)
Cognitive Science
Visual representations are prevalent in STEM instruction. To benefit from visuals, students need representational competencies that enable them to see meaningful information. Most research has focused on explicit conceptual representational competencies, but implicit perceptual competencies might also allow students to efficiently see meaningful information in visuals. Most common methods to assess students’ representational competencies rely on verbal explanations or assume explicit attention. However, because perceptual competencies are implicit and not necessarily verbally accessible, these methods are ill-equipped to assess them. We address these shortcomings with a method that draws on similarity learning, a machine learning technique that detects visual features that account for participants’ responses to triplet comparisons of visuals. In Experiment 1, 614 chemistry students judged the similarity of Lewis structures and in Experiment 2, 489 students judged the similarity of ball-and-stick models. Our results showed that our method can detect visual features that drive students’ perception and suggested that students’ conceptual knowledge about molecules informed perceptual competencies through top-down processes. Furthermore, Experiment 2 tested whether we can improve the efficiency of the method with active sampling. Results showed that random sampling yielded higher accuracy than active sampling for small sample sizes. Together, the experiments provide the first method to assess students’ perceptual competencies implicitly, without requiring verbalization or assuming explicit visual attention. These findings have implications for the design of instructional interventions that help students acquire perceptual representational competencies.
Under which conditions are physical versus virtual representations effective? Contrasting conceptual and embodied mechanisms of learning.
Rau, Martina; Herder, Tiffany (2021)
Journal of Educational Psychology
Abundant prior research has compared effects of physical and virtual manipulatives on students’ conceptual learning. However, most prior research has been based on conceptual salience theory; that is, it has explained mode effects by the manipulative’s capability to draw students’ attention to conceptually relevant (visual or haptic) features. Yet, research based on embodied schema theory suggests that other mechanisms, which do not rely on students’ explicit attention to specific features, also affect students’ learning from manipulatives. This paper presents a study that contrasts predictions by different theoretical perspectives by comparing multiple versions of physical and virtual manipulatives. Specifically, we conducted a lab experiment with 119 undergraduate students who learned about 3 concepts related to atomic structure using 1 of 4 versions of energy diagram manipulatives. The 4 versions varied the representation mode (i.e., physical vs. virtual) and the actions students used to manipulate the representation (i.e., via actions that draw attention or activate embodied schemas). We assessed students’ learning via reproduction and transfer posttests and interviews that measured the quality of students’ explanation and the gestures they used while explaining the concepts. Our results suggest that embodied schema theory accounts for effects on the reproduction posttest, whereas conceptual salience theories account for effects on the transfer posttest. Further, when physical manipulatives offered relevant haptic cues, we found an advantage of physical manipulatives on transfer. We interpret these results based on the complexity of embodied schema and conceptual salience learning mechanisms and the complexity of the assessment tasks.

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