Listening Versus Looking: Learning About Dynamic Complex Systems in Science Among Blind and Sighted Students

Abstract

Listening to Complexity (L2C) is a novel sonified representation of complex systems that addresses the lack of exploratory materials in science for students who are blind. It complements agent-based models of systems by representing a micro-level individual’s properties, events and location, together with macro-level variables of the system. The study examines whether this perceptual compensation creates a comparable learning environment. Students who are blind worked with auditory models; sighted students used visual models. Conceptual understanding and systems reasoning were assessed with pre- and post-test questionnaires. Learning processes were captured by analyzing their workbook writings. The L2C environment not only supported blind students’ learning similarly, but also furthered their learning with one of the more challenging concepts, diffusion. Some concepts relating to the micro-level were learned earlier among the blind students. It seems that auditory representation increases sensitivity to the micro-level interactions in a way less accessible in visual representations.