A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Effect of Computer Simulation and Animation (CSA) on Student Learning in Kinematics in a Foundational Undergraduate Engineering Course

A quasi-experimental quantitative study was performed to investigate the effect of computer simulation and animation (CSA) on student learning in kinematics in a foundational engineering dynamics course. The study involved 149 student participants in two recent semesters: 67 in a comparison semester and 82 in an intervention semester. This short paper describes two CSA modules we developed for students to learn curvilinear motion and relative motion, two critical topics in kinematics. The pretest-posttest results show that the students in the intervention semester achieved high learning gains of 62% and 59%, respectively, from two CSA modules. These two percentages represent, respectively, a 23% and 46% increase in learning gains as compared to those in the comparison semester.