Multi-touch Technology in Education:Digital Simulation Improves Student Comprehension, Cognitive Concept, and Anxiety

Digital simulation technology is widely used in science education and has enormous potential for its development. Numerous studies have shown that the use of digital simulation in an education environment, especially in scientific education, is conducive to intuitive interaction and improves students' participation in their learning activities. This study investigated the effects of digital simulation with different interactive modes (based on gesture simulation and button simulation) on students' cognitive concepts, attention, and anxiety levels in an elementary physics course. To collect the students' cognitive concepts, attention, and anxiety levels, we developed a digital simulation with two different interactive interfaces and used a quasi-experimental design, in which a total of 40 sixth-grade students were randomly assigned to a gesture-or digital-based digital simulation. The experimental results showed that the digital simulation of gestures effectively improved students' cognitive concept levels. The EEG analysis showed that students in the gesturebased digital simulation had higher attention levels compared with those who used button-based digital simulation. Moreover, the operation of digital simulation is relatively difficult; students using gesture-based digital simulation had greater anxiety than students using button-based digital simulation. This study suggests that the use of multi-touch gestures in science education can improve students' comprehension of scientific concepts and improve their concentration in learning activities.