Relationships between Facial Expressions, Prior Knowledge, and Multiple Representations: a Case of Conceptual Change for Kinematics Instruction

Kinematics is an important but challenging area in physics. In previously published works of the current research project, it was revealed that there is a significant relationship between facial microexpression states (FMES) changes and conceptual conflict-induced conceptual change. Consequently, the current study integrated FMES into a kinematics multiple representation instructional scenario to investigate if FMES could be used to help construct students’ conceptual paths, and help predict students’ learning outcome. Analysis revealed that types of students’ FMES (neutral, surprised, positive, and negative) were important in helping instructors predict students’ learning outcomes. Findings showed that exhibiting negative FMES through all three major representation segments of the instructional process (i.e., scientific demonstration, textual instruction, and animated instruction) suggests a higher probability of conceptual change among students with sufficient background knowledge on the topic. For students with insufficient prior knowledge, the result was the opposite. Moreover, animated representation was found to be critical to the prediction of student conceptual change. In sum, the results showed FMES as a viable indicator for conceptual change in kinematics, and also reaffirmed the importance of prior knowledge and representations of scientific concepts.