Abstract:

Static books add various diagrams, graphics, figures and photos to the text, known as visual representations, which are ways to show the relationships between ideas, data, information and concepts in a visual way, with the purpose of improving the attention, perception, and learning of concepts. However, students have trouble understanding the meaning of these representations as they lack the visual competencies required to interpret them. In addition, students do not make connections between representations spontaneously and this becomes an obstacle to learning the concept. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to improve the performance of civil engineering students who are registered in the Static course offered by an Ecuadorian public university using visual competencies. Multiple external representations are structures that allow students to learn concepts from different points of view. Each of these representations emphasizes different aspects of the concept, but somehow, they are related. Multiple external representations have become an important tool for understanding the concepts found in science, mathematics and engineering courses. Visual representations are the means used to communicate information, in such a way as to evoke meaning in the mind of the person who receives the message. The main function of a visual representation is to be a more concrete reference than the written or oral word. This study uses visual representations to understand concepts, but ultimately their application moves to the problem-solving process. The representational competencies that students must have to learn from visual representations are as follows: Conceptual representational competencies, which in turn is divided into visual understanding and understanding of the connection. Perceptual representational competences, which in turn is divided into visual fluency and fluidity of understanding. Robert Gagné's instructional strategy considers three instructional phases: Pre-instructional activities, instructional activities and evaluation and transfer activities. The participants were 68 students between the ages of 19 and 20 who took the subject of Static. The instructional unit was "Forces in Beams". The time spent teaching lasted six hours. The evaluation instrument was the resolution of five beam problems of different types and with different load configurations. The procedure followed in this study was as follows: Present the content following Robert Gagné's instructional strategy to both the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the instruction using visual skills. The control group received the instruction without using the visual representations. Administer the posttest. The statistical analysis used was the Gosset test for independent samples with a significance value p < 0.05. The Gosset test gave a value of t = 3,5540 with df = 64 and a value p = 0.0008, therefore the null hypothesis is rejected. The results show that the visual competencies improve not only the conceptual understanding but the problem-solving process. The implications of this results for engineering education are discussed.

Keywords:

Multiple external representations, visual competencies, conceptual understanding, problem solving, statics.