An investigation of visual and manual behaviors involved in interactions between users and physics simulation interfaces

Improving students' in-depth understanding of physics conceptual frameworks is a central goal of physics learning. Traditional instructional approaches, however, have been repeatedly reported as having little effect on achieving this goal (e.g., Hake, 1998; Kim & Pak, 2002; Trowbridge & McDermott, 1981), and many educators have strived to advocate alternative approaches that could reach this desirable goal. Among the suggested approaches, inquiry learning has become prevalent since the early 2000s.