Haptic Quantum Chemistry

In my doctoral thesis, supervised by Prof. Dr. Markus Reiher and Prof. Dr. Manu Kapur, I explored how receiving haptic feedback in the form of resistance facilitates the learning of chemical concepts. Specifically, students could manipulate molecules on a computer screen with a haptic device that allowed them to always feel the force that would act on their selected atom. Thereby, they could experience the activation barrier directly.

This project resulted in four publications and one released software.

The software SCINE Heron is available open source here. We have further described the software in a paper and accompanying youtube video.

We conducted two empirical studies to test the effectiveness of the sensory experience on the learning process. Both studies involve multiple conditions, all of which interact with the interactive software. Specifically, in both studies, the students are asked to perform certain reactions. The experimental condition is in both studies the condition, in which the students performed the reactions with the haptic device while receiving haptic feedback. In the first study, we compared this condition to one, in which the students also used the haptic device, but did not receive any haptic feedback, and to one, in which the students performed the reactions with a common computer mouse. The instructions only differed in the technical instructions to the haptic device. Specifically, the force was not further explained. Surprisingly, we found that the students who used the haptic device without receiving feedback outperformed the students who received haptic feedback. From student reflections, it became clear that their misconceptions were too robust and often aligned with the haptic feedback for the feedback to challenge it sufficiently. If anything, the students who received the haptic feedback were confused if the feedback was not aligned with their prior understanding. We attributed this outcome to the lack of introduction to the haptic feedback and concluded that “it should be studied how scaffolding affects the learning outcome in the case of multimodal representations including haptic feedback.”

Designs of all studies conducted in the scope of my doctoral project.

In the second study, we did exactly that. We introduced an explanation of the embodied metaphor that we were trying to create for the students. To make it fair, the comparison condition still used the haptic device without any feedback, but received additional visual aids as arrow that corresponded to the force acting on the atoms. Unfortunately, this time, the response rate for the posttest was very low. However, we found promising results with regards to motivational and affective variables. Specifically, state curiosity, positive affect, and perceived relevance were increased in students who received haptic feedback.

Finally, we reanalysed the utterances of students together with newly conducted interviews for conceptual metaphors. Towards the end of my doctoral project, I kept on stumbling over student utterances that were highly metaphorical and pointed towards their embodied understanding generally and of the chemical bond specifically. This was the start of what today is my main research interest - how we make sense of what we cannot perceive be creating metaphorical mappings from embodied experiences to the imperceptible concept.

📖 Thesis: Müller, C. H. (2023). Embodied quantum chemistry learning from haptic feedback [Doctoral Thesis, ETH Zurich]. https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000644299

🔎 Study I: Müller, C. H., Reiher, M., & Kapur, M. (2024a). Embodied preparation for learning basic quantum chemistry: A mixed‐method study. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 40(2), 715–730. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12909

🔎 Study II: Müller, C. H., Reiher, M., & Kapur, M. (2024b). Exploring the Significance of Explanation in the Construction of Conceptual Metaphors. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2024, 1043-1046. https://doi.org/10.22318/icls2024.871449

🕵🏻‍♀️ Metaphor analysis: Müller, C. H., Reiher, M., & Kapur, M. (2024c). The Multiple Student Conceptions of the Chemical Bond in a Quantum Chemical Context. Journal of Chemical Education, acs.jchemed.4c00024. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00024

🖥️ Software paper: Müller, C. H.*, Steiner, M.*, Unsleber, J. P.*, Weymuth, T., Bensberg, M., Csizi, K.-S., Mörchen, M., Türtscher, P. L., & Reiher, M. (2024). Heron: Visualizing and Controlling Chemical Reaction Explorations and Networks. The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 128(41), 9028-9044. [* contributed equally]