PicsAR: A Physics Visualisation to Enhance Students’ Thinking Skills in Abstract Concepts

Abstract

Abstract The aim of the research was to visualise abstract physics concepts through a PicsAR (Physics Augmented Reality) application to enhance students’ thinking skills in abstract concepts. Previously, the researchers developed the PicsAR by utilising Research and Development (R & D) design with an ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Develop, Implementation, and Evaluation) and reported through previous publication. It has claimed that the PicsAR has fulfilled the criteria of valid, practice, and effective. The atomic model was exemplified as an abstract concept in physics as an outcome of visualisation. Totally, 33 high school students with their teacher in Surabaya Indonesia contributed to this study. To explore students’ thinking skills in abstract concepts, the descriptive statistics were used in guiding the data analysis. The visualisation of research trends in physics augmented reality was performed by VOSviewer software. Empirically, the finding of the research described the feature of PicsAR and the performance of the augmented reality of atomic models. Additionally, students’ abstract thinking skills of atomic models were also discussed, including four types of reasoning: proportional, probabilistic, combinatorial, and correlational reasoning. Overall, the students achieved excellent of all proportional reasoning indicators, two-thirds of probabilistic and correlational reasoning indicators, and seventy-five percent of combinatorial reasoning indicators.