A Framework for Educational Technologies that Support Representational Competencies

Visual representations are ubiquitous in STEM disciplines. Yet, students' difficulties in learning with visual representations are well documented. Therefore, to succeed in STEM, students need representational competencies-the ability to use visual representations for problem solving and learning. Educational technologies that support students' acquisition of representational competencies can significantly enhance their success in STEM disciplines. Current design frameworks for educational technologies do not offer sufficient guidance to develop supports for representational competencies. This paper presents a new design framework that describes an iterative, step-by-step approach for the design of educational technologies that support representational competencies (SUREC) in a way that aligns with the demands specific to the target discipline. The paper illustrates how this framework was used to inform the design of an intelligent tutoring system for undergraduate chemistry. An evaluation study suggests that the SUREC framework yielded an effective educational technology that enhances students' learning of content knowledge.