Interactive Physics Simulations Appeal to First-Year Students

devoted to improving the quality of educational software for physics1-10 and expanding the use of computers in physics teaching.11 Over the last five years, our research team has developed several programs based on simulations of physical phenomena.12,13 In addition, we have also put them into practice, complementing the traditional instruction of first-year students. The students who used these programs got better grades than those who did not use the simulation programs, regardless of whether they were in the same class or in previous classes.14 Based on this experience, and after a fruitless search for software that met our particular needs, we decided to develop a whole new suite of programs of our own: the Interactive Simulation (INSIMU) Project. The programs make use of the widely available Microsoft Windows environment and are based on up-to-date educational practices. Each program includes a simulation laboratory and a tutorial for the specific class of physical processes under study. As part of the INSIMU Project, we intend to compare students’ understanding and misconceptions before and after they use the software. In the next section we outline the general characteristics of the INSIMU Project and the essential features of the programs. Later in the article we provide a more detailed description of a specific program devoted to the study of elastic structures.