Abstract

Some students have difficulty analyzing physio-chemical properties of molecular structures from molecular models. This analysis has been highly visual, posing some challenges such as occlusion. Auditory display techniques, especially earcons (using musical sounds that represent meaningful information) have been positively used for supporting the analysis and learning of molecular information. We developed earcons that represent the molecular property of hydrophobicity from amino acids (the building blocks of molecules such as proteins) for supporting molecular analysis, along with the visualization of a molecular model. The insulin molecule was used as a test bed due to its suitability for educational purposes. In a preliminary user study, undergraduate students evaluated the usability of the earcons. We found that the sounds efficiently and effectively mapped the phobicity molecular property, and participants perceived the sounds as pleasant and melodic. This was useful for complementing the visualization of insulin’s molecular structure.

Citation

Garcia-Ruiz, M.A., Santana-Mancilla, P.C. & Gaytan-Lugo, L.S. (2019). A Usability Study of an Interactive Auditory Display for Supporting Learning of Molecular Structure. In J. Theo Bastiaens (Ed.), Proceedings of EdMedia + Innovate Learning (pp. 1418-1423). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved July 15, 2020 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/210155/.

© 2019 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)