(2002) found inverse correlations between interest on the one side and negative emotions like anger and anxiety on the other, suggesting that negative emotions lower interest. (1970) developed a scale called the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI Spielberger et al., 1970, 1976 ) that is used all over the world ( Marteau and Bekker, 1992 Barnes et al., 2002 ). In biology education, disgust, fear, and anxiety are important emotions that can be task related because of the specificity of biology, namely the work with dissection ( Holstermann et al., 2009 Randler et al., 2012a ) or when encountering living animals ( Hummel and Randler, 2012 Randler et al., 2012b ).Īnxiety is conceptualized as state and trait anxiety. Emotions have an effect on students’ cognitive processes and performance ( Pekrun et al., 2002 ) and can be mainly categorized as positive emotions (e.g., relief, hope, pride) and negative emotions (e.g., anger, envy, sadness Linnenbrink and Pintrich, 2002 Pekrun et al., 2011 ).
(2011) defined emotions as a set of interrelated psychological processes (affective, cognitive, physiological, and motivational). The dissection film has clear benefits-increasing PA and self-efficacy-that come at the cost of higher NA and higher STAI-S. The life history group showed no differences between the pretest and posttest 1. The dissection film group scored higher in PA, NA, and state anxiety (STAI-S) after the dissection video treatment and higher in self-efficacy after the dissection. We applied a pre/posttest treatment-comparison design and used the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the State–Trait–Anxiety Inventory for State (STAI-S), and a self-efficacy measure three times: before the lesson (pretest), after the film treatment (posttest 1), and after the dissection (posttest 2). Seventy received the treatment with the dissection video, and 65 viewed the life history video. The participants were 135 students studying to become biology teachers. We compared this treatment with another group that watched a life history video about the fish. We aimed at reducing negative emotions (anxiety, negative affect ) and increasing positive affect (PA) and self-efficacy by an experimental intervention using a predissection video to instruct students about fish dissection. * Information listed above is at the time of submission.In science education, dissections of animals are an integral part of teaching, but they often evoke negative emotions. The Phase II work includes building the entire frog anatomy and content, completing the virtual tool palette, and building the learning and assessment architecture which records and assesses students performance. The project builds on the successful results of Phase I which demonstrated feasibility of the system. The system will have built in supplemental content, including organs and tissues that can be queried and activations that bring biological systems (circulatory, digestive, etc.) to life inside the very specimen the student is working on.
Virtual frog dissection simulation software#
The software will run on a commodity personal computer using only a standard mouse for input. The student will be able to cut a virtual frog with a virtual scalpel, and use any other tool that he or she might with a physical dissection. We propose to take the technologies developed in the virtual surgery domain and adapt them to a virtual dissection simulation, called V-Frog. Today, virtually every surgical procedure has an associated Virtual Reality trainer available. Surgery training is an area that has wholeheartedly adopted Virtual Reality as an invaluable medium for training. Virtual Reality provides a great opportunity to build synthetic environments that are safer, cheaper, and offer better learning environments than their physical counterparts.