Animations in Nerve and Muscle Physiology as an
Effective Learning Aid for Students
Sarah Barron
May 22, 2004
Project Advisor: Timothy Rozell
Kansas State University
College of Agriculture Honors Program
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/ed_ansi_rozell
Abstract
A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of visual aids, in the form of
animations, in helping students understand and retain information about the physiology of
depolarization in nerves, muscle contraction, and glomerular filtration rate. The animations were
compared to two other types of exercises: repetition of the material and an in-depth written
description. The effectiveness of the exercise was evaluated by improvement of scores between a
pre and post-quiz and a ranking of the exercise given by the students in the areas of understanding
and remembering of the material.
Introduction
Students may have different methods of learning, including reading, audition, visual models, or
hands-on experiences. However, it is believed that with some concepts that are quite abstract,
having a visual model will help with comprehension. Subjects such as physiology can be
challenging for students to grasp for a variety or reasons. Many are on the cellular, microscopic
level, so creating a visual image is impossible from text alone. Also, many of the physiological
processes contain many steps with multiple events happening simultaneously. This creates
problems for students in attaining an understanding of what exactly is taking place and its order of
events.
The use of animations has practical applications especially in areas of science and math where
many times visualization of concepts is difficult. Many students taking in-depth physiology
courses at Kansas State University such as Anatomy and Physiology and Human Body, often
complain of the abstractness of some processes that occur inside the body, especially on the
cellular level. Therefore the student fails to adequately comprehend the material. Just by reading
text alone, the student has no way to form a mental model of what each physical component looks
like and how the process is carried out. The physiology is often so complex, that even pictures or
diagrams are not adequate for understanding how the events are interconnected. Therefore
animations should help students visualize each step and how each component is related.
Two aspects of animation increase its effectiveness as a learning device: the sequential
motion of objects and their spatial orientation (ChanLin 228). The movement of components in a
particular order helps students learn the succession of events that take place. Having an illustration
that shows the shapes of microanatomy helps the student grasp an idea that is abstract to make it
concrete. It also shows the spatial orientation of each of the components and how they are
interrelated to each other.
To even further enhance the effectiveness of animations, other multimedia such as audio
dialog could serve as a helpful supplement. Research suggests to maximize learning of subject
matter, different methods should be used together such as audio and animations or written text and
animation (Catrambone 495). It is also important fo the instructional material to be concise.
Simplicity and organization of an animation may play a key role in the successful understanding of
the subject matter by students.
Methods
After talking to the physiology instructors, three concepts were determined to create the most
difficulty in understanding for students. These included: muscle contraction, depolarization and
repolarization in different kinds of nerve cells (myelinated versus unmyelinated), glomerular
filtration rate, and the influence of hormones on water reabsorption in the kidneys. In order to test
comprehension and retention of the material presented, a pre and post-quiz was made for each
subject matter.
Animations were created using a mixture of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop for the
illustrating of different components and then Adobe Live Motion was used for the animation.
These programs were excellent in providing three- dimensional effects, realistic models for
microanatomy, and the capability of performing complex animation. Live Motion had the
capabilities for animation in the altering or skewing of shapes, rotation of objects, changes in
opacity and color, and simultaneous movement of a large number of parts.
A website was created for the delivery of each subject and quiz. The layout of the website
required the student to take a pre-quiz over the material and write down his or her answers on a
separate sheet of paper. The quizzes were comprised of a mixture of sequencing questions
(placing events in the proper order of which they occur during a process) and multiple-choice.
Then the student, according to last name, would perform one of the four exercises: a control, a set
of animations, written descriptions, or repetition. For the control group, the students were given no
instructional material between the pre and post-quiz. For the animations, the student was given
access to two or three animations of a process such as muscle contraction or depolarization. The
written exercise was an in-depth, textbook-like description of the process. For the repetition
exercise, the students were given a sequential list of events covering the process and then were
asked to write out the list at least five times. After the exercise was performed, the students took a
post-quiz identical to the pre-quiz to determine if the exercise enhanced their learning or
understanding of the material. A form was filled out in which the student recorded his or her pre
and post-quiz scores as well as a numerical rating of the exercise in the areas of understanding and
retention. This form was submitted electronically and recorded on a spreadsheet.
The animations were presented after the material had been introduced and discussed in
class. Therefore the students had at least a beginning level of understanding of the material. Some
studies have indicated that presenting animations without some prior introduction of a concept
causes confusion and may be less effective (ChanLin 228). Therefore these exercises were aimed
at strengthening the students knowledge and the understanding of these processes.
The animations for renal physiology were never tested with students. The events occurring
in renal filtration are so complex and detailed, that it was difficult to cover each process that was
going on while still keeping the animation simple and easy to understand. It was also difficult to
precisely define which events were most important to illustrate for students.
Results and Discussion
There were a total of eighty-two participants in the nerve experiment and fifty-nin students
participating in the muscle contraction experiment. For the nerve, 14 participated in the control,
28 participated in the animation, 17 participated in the description, and 23 participated in the
repetition exercise. For the muscle, 9 participated in the control, 21 participated in the animation,
11 participated in the description, and 18 participated in the repetition exercise. The student’s last
name determined what exercise they were supposed to perform. The variation in number of
participants in each group can be attributed to two factors: there were more students with last
names in certain areas of the alphabet and there was a small problem with a few students
performing an exercise that did not match with their last name (i.e. not following instructions).
The following chart shows the average improvement in scores, the average ranking in both
understanding and remembering, and the level of variance for each exercise:
Result Averages
Exercise
AverageIm
provem
ent U
nderstanding
Rem
em
bering
Variance
Muslce Control
0.3333
1
1
5
Muscle Anim
ation
5.4762
3.5714
3.2857
10.4619
Muscle Description
5.6363
3.2727
3.0909
7.4545
Muscle Repetition
7.6667
3.2778
3.8889
8.5882
Nerve Control
0.3571
1.0714
1.0714
0.5549
Nerve Anim
ation
5.6071
3.6785
4
13.0621
Nerve Description
4.2353
3.5294
3.0588
4.2353
NerveRepetition
5.7826
3.3913
3.9565
5.7826
In both the muscle and nerve exercise, students improved, on average, their quiz scores the most
through the repetition exercise. This result can be explained by the fact that a large portion of the
questions on the quiz asked about the sequence of events in the physiological process. The exact
sequence on the pre and post- quiz was given in the repetition exercise, so if the exercise was
completed correctly, students should have substantially improved their scores. However it should
be noted, that the repetition exercise received very low ratings in understanding. This can be
attributed to the fact that the exercise was designed for complete memorization of the process
without background information about the steps taking place. The animation exercise on average
improved scores second best in the subject area of the nerve, but came in last for the muscle.
These scores were lower than expected for the muscle. It could be inferred that this was due to the
complexity of the material, and an animation alone with no audio or written description
supplementing it is not as effective. However, both the nerve and muscle animations received the
highest average rating in understanding of the material and either placed first or a close second in
retention. The description of depolarization and repolarization of nerves helped students to
improve their scores the least for nerve physiology and was very closely tied to the animations
score in muscle physiology. This is supported by the fact that many times the description got a
high understanding rating but a lower retention rating. Since much of the quiz was based on
sequence, the students probably did not remember the specific events as well, and failed to
improve their score dramatically.
The level of variance is quite high for both categories of animations. Different students learn
better from different methods. In the raw data, there was a trend for the animation exercise to
either significantly improve the scores of students (by nine to fifteen points) or to have little effect,
only improving their score by a couple of points. It can be concluded that the students who are
visual learners benefited greatly from this type of instruction while the students who learn better by
other methods, did not benefit as much. This will cause the large spread in data. For the other
exercises, the variance was much less. For repetition, memorization is an easy form of learning, so
most students benefited from memorizing the sequence of events and therefore improved their
scores significantly.
Further statistical analysis was conducted including calculation of standard deviation and the pvalue. The following graphs illustrate the average improvement in score for each exercise, the
standard deviation, and which exercises provided a difference in results as indicated by the
superscripts:
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The p-values (p<0.05) suggest that there is obvious difference in effectiveness between the
control versus the animation, description, and repetition exercise for each subject. Some form of
instructional material was better than none. The results were mixed between the nerve and muscle
for the rest of the exercises. There was a difference between the description and repetition exercise
and then between the animation and repetition exercise for the muscle. It can be concluded then
that the repetition exercise was significantly more effective. There is no significant difference
between the description and animation exercise, so therefore, one could not conclude that one form
of exercise is more effective than the other. This can be attributed different learning styles for
different people. The same inference can be made for the nerve simulation. However, this time,
the p-value of the repetition indicated no significant difference in scores compared to the other two
exercises.
Conclusion
The animations proved to be a fairly effective learning device for students. The improvement
in pre and post scores was not as significant as hoped, especially compared to the other exercises.
Repetition seemed to be the most effective for improving scores. However this type of learning
could be argued not to be as effective since it is pure memorization without a lot of understanding.
The description exercise seemed to be the least effective of the three, as it seemed to promote an
adequate level of understanding of the material, but a poor amount of retention. This deviation
from the expected results may be attributed to conflicting studies in the effectiveness of animations
in learning and the sensitiveness of the animations effectiveness to design, layout, and complexity.
In some studies, computer aided learning through the use of tools such as images and animations,
were found to be less helpful (Devitt 139). The students may not like the manner in which an
animation is set up, it may be too intricate, or some get a different interpretation of than what is
intended by the designer, especially when there is no description to supplement it.
If the experiment were to be performed again, an audio description of the process would
compliment the animations. Then the effectiveness of the combination of audio and visual
learning could be measured and is believed would provide the greatest improvement in scores as
well as understanding and retention of the material. The renal system, and possible even the
muscle system, would be reevaluated for design and set up. Also, a question would be asked as to
what kind of learning the student learns best from: visual, audio, or written. The website also
would be automated to randomly assign the student to a certain exercise. This would ensure equal
distribution of participants for each exercise.
Bibliography
Attributes of Animation for Learning Scientific Knowledge. Lih-Juan ChanLin. Journal of
Instructional Psychology, Dec 2000 v27 i4 p228.
Computer-aided Learning: An Overvalued Educational Resource? Devitt, Peter and Palmer,
Edward. Medical Education. 1999, 33, p136-139.
Using Animations to Help Students Learn Computer Algorithms. Catrambone, Richard and Seay,
Fleming. Human Factors, Fall 2002, v44 i3, p495.