Is physicality an important aspect of learning through science experimentation among kindergarten students?

4 conditions x 20 students = 80 kindergarten students

Kindergarten students (age ~5-6), Cyprus; beam-balance experimentation, comparing materials by mass.

Pre-post comparison study with four conditions crossing physical manipulatives (PM) and virtual manipulatives (VM), including sequential PM-then-VM and VM-then-PM combinations. 20 students per cell — very small, so power to detect anything but a large difference is poor and a null here is weak evidence of equivalence. Outcome is a researcher-designed conceptual assessment about the beam balance and mass, administered by the researchers. Assignment procedure is reported as a comparison study rather than a fully described randomisation, hence grade C rather than B.

The hardest test the physicality hypothesis gets, because it is run on five-year-olds, where the developmental argument for concrete materials is strongest. Kindergarteners who experimented with a real beam balance and those who experimented with a virtual one reached equivalent understanding of using a balance to compare masses; sequential combinations did no better. The authors conclude that manipulation matters and physicality as such does not. Treat the equivalence claim cautiously: 20 students per cell cannot rule out small-to-moderate advantages, and the outcome is a researcher-designed immediate measure of a single narrow concept. But the direction is consistent across every age band tested from kindergarten to undergraduate, which is what makes the pattern hard to dismiss.

Low for the PM-vs-VM contrast (between-condition assignment); the study makes no attainment claim.

Extends the Triona & Klahr 2003 and Klahr et al. 2007 physical-vs-virtual null downward to age 5-6, the age at which the embodiment/manipulation argument for physicality is at its strongest. Same research group as Zacharia & Olympiou 2011 (undergraduate).