The Design of Software Tools for Meaningful Learning by Experience: Flexibility and Feedback

Experience in using commercially available software to teach students about principles of graphical data analysis suggests that several critical design modifications are advisable. In a quasi-experimental study, three different versions of an original graphing program were used by inner-city high school students solving scientific data analysis problems. A version incorporating “coaching” feedback into a highly flexible interface was found to be significantly superior to either an “open” version giving no extrinsic feedback or a “restrictive” one that disabled program options whose use was deemed inappropriate based on the data analysis context. As an illustration of one of the graph-based critical thinking skills developed by the students, results are presented as contrasting pairs of graphs in which one is designed to emphasize, and the other to downplay, the effects/of interface design, gender, and their interactions.