Epic Science: Spring 2018

Middle school students are shown sitting around a table listening to a presentation of the Epic science animations.

Room and procedure description:

The room in the elevator hub on the 7th floor of KCAD's Fountain building. The room was well lit.

The procedure was run by Brad, Sarah and Aubrey on Tuesday. Brad, Holly and Alysia ran the procedure on Thursday.

There were 10-12 seats for the middle-schoolers to sit in, and about 8-10 fit in the table. 2-4 students had to sit apart from the table as there was not enough room for the students on either day. There was a TV at the end of the table and the Epic Science GIFs were displayed on that.

Product Description

EPIC Science is a a website containing amusing animated gifs explaining science concepts. The website is search-able and indexes content according to the Next Generation Science Standards indexes. The lessons are targeted towards grades 5-8.

Overview

User Test Report: EPIC Science

TEST DATE: JAN 30 & FEB 1 2018

Number and type of subjects description:

10-12 middle school-aged kids per group.

5 groups total; 2 on Tuesday and 3 on Thursday.

Brad and Aubrey chose the animations during the first group on Tuesday while Sarah recorded. Brad read aloud the caption to the right of the GIF and Aubrey read aloud the caption inside the GIF. Brad provided sound effects to fill lulls in the students' reactions.

During the second group, Brad continued to read aloud the captions to the right, Sarah read the captions on the GIFs and Aubrey recorded. This time, the students chose the animations they wanted to see to provide more interaction from the audience, which was more effective.

Summary

The intended use of these animations is that teachers would use them one at a time, as a component within a lesson on a very specific science principle. For that reason, the animations effectiveness in-context, was not able to be assessed. What was assessed was the ability for a variety of animation types to be engaging in their own right, for middle school students. Here is what we found:

Students generally felt that the animations added value to the learning experience through the employment of cartooning and animation.
Animations with high levels of craft and animation fundamentals were the most valued. This was not necessarily less effective than cleverness and other humor, but there is a correlation between craft skill and humor delivered, as the art is more clearly visible and meaningful with higher skill levels.
Clear representation of the science principle was a key factor for successful animations.
Slow enough timing and pausing for the viewer to digest the information was a key factor for a successful animation.
It was difficult with some animations to tell where the beginning and end were after the looped once. This is mostly due to no pausing or other visual cue at those points.
The animation’s value diminished with time… with engagement beginning to wane after about 15-20 minutes and after 10-15 animations.
Students wished there was audio in the animations. When a tester played the role of a teacher lecturing, this was less of a issue. The animations are designed to work during a teacher’s lesson, so the assessment regarding the value of audio remains open.

Engagement

Kids were generally amused, never a laugh-out-loud reaction, as cleverness is used as the humor mechanism.
Kids found the pig fart animation and campfire animations the funniest, and said they “liked those the most”.
Wanted sound; thought GIFs would be funnier if they were videos.
- Art style/production value is important; the better the quality of the animation, the more it was liked.
- Students answered a question about the general humor quality this way: Some of the humor was too “slapstick” and “gross-out” for this age group.
- “Atomic Love” grossed out group 3 on Thursday.
- “Water Cycle” GIF was a favorite of group 2 on Thursday. Giving ENOUGH TIME to tell a STORY will engage viewers more than a fast, 6-second animation. A time for rest, where the animation is still, is important to have and the viewer can process what has happened.
- “Holy Shi-tzu” had a clever name popular with group 2 on Tuesday, and groups 1 and 2 on Thursday.
- “Woodpecker Traits” & “Woodpecker Traits 2” was popular with group 1 on Thursday.
- “Sloth Traits” was unpopular with all groups on Thursday. The kids had questions about the logic of the animation, such as the tree branch reappearing and why the sloth was falling when the information suggests sloths shouldn’t fall off trees.
- “Subsystems” Group 2 on Tuesday enjoyed immediately as this was the first that they chose to display.

List of findings based on patterns:

A pattern would be if 10 or more subjects have a similar response. The patterns can often be in-line with the observational framework or types of questions asked. But, they can also reveal themselves outside of those categories. Include the percentages for the patterns. For instance; 10 similar responses out of 60 subjects would be 17% ( 10➗60).

Patterns from observed behavior:

Clarity

The kids picked apart inconsistencies and appeared confused with some of the animations.
- Wanted to see the GIFs with the brightest, clearest thumbnails, that forecasted the subject, the most.

Interaction

GIFs were a little awkward to show in the way the animations were displayed. The students could only react to the animations and once they were done reacting, there was no more interaction. GIFs are most effective when they are either physically sought out by the viewer instead of displayed. As a teacher's resource, they will be most effective because the purpose of the GIF is to appear in a science lecture instead of being shown one after the other.
As far as awkwardness while showing the animations, the students reacted with an occasional chuckle, but quickly got bored with the animations after seeing about 10-15. After that, the students began to sit with their hands on their heads and there was less laughter.
The long period of group 2 on Tuesday (35-45 mins) was far too long to keep the students’ attentions.
The tables did not have enough space to accommodate all of the students, and those sitting in chairs outside the table space were more distant, distracted, and did not engage as much.

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