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Ph.D. Projects

Tanja Engelmann

[Person] [Project]

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Tanja Engelmann (née Keller), Dipl. Psych., Dr.

Short Vita

11/1975:

Born in Edenkoben (Germany).

10/1995-04/2001:

Study of Psychology at the University of Mannheim (Germany).

04/2001:

Graduation in Psychology at the University of Mannheim (Germany). Thesis: Development of a concept to improve internal customer orientation in the case of the Human Resources department of the Prodacta AG (Entwicklung eines Konzepts zur Verbesserung der internen Kundenorientierung am Beispiel des Bereichs Human Resources der Prodacta AG)

07/2001-11/2001:

Junior consultant at the imagin Prof. Bochmann & Partner GmbH, Internationale Markt- und Management-Information / Unternehmensberatung

04/2002-03/2005:

PhD student of the VGK.

Since 04/2005:

Researcher of the Knowledge Media Research Center.

06/2005:

Disputation. Title of the PhD: Knowledge Acquisition with Information Visualization. The Impact of Dimensionality and Color Coding (Wissenserwerb mit Informationsvisualisierungen. Der Einfluss von Dimensionalität und Chromatik)

Contact

Phone: ++49 (0) 7071 / 979 239
FAX: ++49 (0) 7071 / 979 100
email: Tanja.Keller@vgk.de
WWW: My homepage

Knowledge Media Research Center
(Institut für Wissensmedien)
Konrad-Adenauer-Str. 40
D-72072 Tübingen (Germany)

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Ph.D. Project

Topic: Knowledge Acqusition with Information Visualizations - The Impact of Dimensionality and Color-Coding

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Dr. F.W. Hesse and Prof. Dr. P. Gerjets (Tübingen) as well as Prof. Dr. R. Plötzner (Freiburg)

Start and end of the Ph.D. project: 04/2002-06/2005

Summary

Information Visualizations
In today's information society it becomes increasingly important to develop efficient models to structure large and complex information sets. To accomplish that, there is a current development to employ information visualizations, i.e. presentations of huge amounts of abstract data, which do not have a natural visual representation (e.g., documents of the WWW). Their goal is to support recognition of data structures and usage of data. So far, information visualizations are mainly used to support information retrieval. Up to now, they are not used for knowledge acquisition.

Research Questions
1. Are information visualizations also qualified for knowledge acquisition?
2a. How do information visualizations for knowledge acquisition have to be designed?
2b. Should information visualizations to support knowledge acquisition be 2D or 3D and in addition is color coding useful?

Theoretical Background
Knowledge Acquisition with Information Visualizations
According to the following theories, information visualizations might have pedagogical potential.

• Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2001): combination of verbal and pictorial information
• Theory on Visuo-Spatial Working Memory (Logie, 1995) & Differentiation between What- and Where-System (Landau & Jackendoff, 1993): combination of spatial and visual information
• Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, van Merrienboer & Paas, 1998): reduction of extraneous cognitive load due to the explicit representation of data structures
• Concept of Computational Efficiency (Larkin & Simon, 1987): facilitation of inferences, reduction of search effort

Two- or three-dimensional Information Visualizations?
Empirical findings and theories argue for two-dimensional information visualizations

With or without color coding?
Empirical findings and theories argue for color-coded information visualizations

Method
Participants: 100 students (56 female, 44 male)

Domain: Civil engineering: provide architects with an overview on the values on six project attributes of their different construction projects

Material and procedure: Order of procedure phases: booklet to measure control variables, learning phase at computer, testing phase without computer, questionnaire

Design: 2x2-design: Dimensionality (2D/3D) x color coding (with/without) (plus baseline condition, i.e. conventional representation of project information -a spreadsheet); randomly between-subjects assignment

Representation format	2D	3D
Without color coding
With color coding

Dependent Measures: Performance variables in a knowledge test, confidence variables w.r.t. the correctness of answers, cognitive load variables

Main Hypotheses
H1: Information visualizations are more suited to support knowledge acquisition compared to the baseline condition
H2: 2D-information visualizations are more suited than 3D-ones
H3: Information visualizations with color coding are more suited than information visualizations without color coding

Results
H1 could be confirmed, but not for all kinds of information visualizations.
H2 could be confirmed for almost all dependent measures.
H3 could be confirmed for overall performance.

An explorative data analysis gave evidence for specific reasons for the dimensionality effect.

Publications and Conference Presentations

See My Homepage

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Last update: 21 June 2007