Differences in Children’s Epistemic Actions, Reasoning, and Previous Ideas When Interacting in Virtual and Tangible Contexts

This study proposes analyzing students’ epistemic actions and reasoning types during a science activity involving moving objects with different friction coefficients on a plane, in both virtual reality and tangible systems. The sample consisted of 12 primary school children from Mexican schools, divided into two equal groups; one group interacted with the tangible device, and the other with the virtual reality device. Each child was interviewed for 45 min during the activity. The data were divided into three categories: epistemic action, reasoning, and previous ideas. The results show differences in the percentages of the three category types across the three conditions in both contexts. The conditions are the same in the two contexts. Condition one refers to the movement of an object in a horizontal plane; condition two relates to the movement of an object on an inclined plane; and condition three refers to the movement of an object up an inclined plane. In the tangible context, children’s prior experiences with an inclined plane suggest they do not need to take many epistemic actions, and they predominantly use deductive–nomological reasoning based on the previous idea that objects always move downward on an inclined plane. In the virtual reality context, children often make hypothetical explanations; therefore, hypothetico-deductive reasoning is more prevalent. This research offers an initial approach to understanding the mutual influence among students’ reasoning types, prior ideas, and related epistemic actions. It can help educators and researchers understand practical applications and limitations of educational technology implementation.