5:15 PM - 7:15 PM
[MZZ45-P04] Effectiveness of an Educational Film Featuring Tateyama Kurobe Geopark: Exploring the Link between Viewer Impressions and Understanding
Keywords:Educational effects, Geoscience education, Learning effects, Mountains regions, Questionnaire surveys, Water cycle
Introduction
The film “Ken no Yama” was created as an educational tool to enhance understanding of Earth's geological processes through Tateyama Kurobe Geopark. It focuses on changes in mountain height caused by tectonic uplift and water-induced erosion, while also illustrating how mountains contribute to plains by supplying spring water. Additionally, the film features a dramatized storyline about Ken, a high school student who lost his father in the mountains, and is presented in a full-dome planetarium projection. This study uses questionnaire surveys to analyze the impressions formed by children who watched the film as part of their learning experience and examines how these impressions relate to their understanding before and after viewing.
Methods
A pre-viewing questionnaire was first administered. Question A measured the children's understanding of long-term changes in mountain height, while Question B assessed their comprehension of how spring water forms. Immediately after watching the film, a post-viewing questionnaire was conducted to collect children's free-form impressions. One month later, a second post-viewing questionnaire was administered to reassess their understanding of Questions A and B. For children who had answered either question incorrectly in the pre-viewing questionnaire, we analyzed how the vocabulary in their written impressions correlated with changes in their understanding.
Results
In the cluster analysis, children were categorized into two groups based on their pre-viewing questionnaire results: Group A (n = 116), who answered Question A incorrectly, and Group B (n = 158), who answered Question B incorrectly. For both groups, we generated dendrograms using Ward's method to classify their vocabulary responses into seven clusters each. In Group A, two clusters stood out: Cluster A-1 (n = 16), characterized by keywords such as “protagonist,” “father,” and “Ken,” and Cluster A-6 (n = 25), featuring terms like “tectonic plate,” “earth,” and “erode.” In Group B, the most distinctive clusters were Cluster B-2 (n = 26), associated with “tectonic plate,” “Shōmyō Falls,” and “high”; Cluster B-5 (n = 20), which prominently featured the keyword “earth”; and Cluster B-7 (n = 16), linked to words such as “protagonist,” “nature,” and “pass away.”
Among the 116 children in Group A, 44 successfully answered Question A correctly in the post-viewing questionnaire. In Cluster A-1, 10 of the 16 children—over half—transitioned to a correct response. Among the 158 children in Group B, 61 provided a correct response in the post-viewing questionnaire. In Cluster B-2, 15 of the 26 children—again, more than half—provided a correct response in the post-viewing questionnaire.
Discussion
These results suggest that children in Clusters A-1 and B-7 were primarily influenced by the film's dramatized elements, as indicated by their frequent use of narrative-focused vocabulary. Although these children demonstrated a stronger tendency than others to improve their understanding of Question A, a comparable pattern was not observed for Question B. Thus, the dramatized aspects of the film appear to have only a limited impact on comprehension. Conversely, children in Clusters A-6 and B-2, who primarily used vocabulary related to Earth's geological processes, exhibited a greater tendency to improve their understanding of Question B compared to other children; however, no similar improvement was observed for Question A. In other words, these children may have developed a biased understanding of mountain-height changes, concentrating solely on either uplift or erosion instead of integrating both processes.
The film “Ken no Yama” was created as an educational tool to enhance understanding of Earth's geological processes through Tateyama Kurobe Geopark. It focuses on changes in mountain height caused by tectonic uplift and water-induced erosion, while also illustrating how mountains contribute to plains by supplying spring water. Additionally, the film features a dramatized storyline about Ken, a high school student who lost his father in the mountains, and is presented in a full-dome planetarium projection. This study uses questionnaire surveys to analyze the impressions formed by children who watched the film as part of their learning experience and examines how these impressions relate to their understanding before and after viewing.
Methods
A pre-viewing questionnaire was first administered. Question A measured the children's understanding of long-term changes in mountain height, while Question B assessed their comprehension of how spring water forms. Immediately after watching the film, a post-viewing questionnaire was conducted to collect children's free-form impressions. One month later, a second post-viewing questionnaire was administered to reassess their understanding of Questions A and B. For children who had answered either question incorrectly in the pre-viewing questionnaire, we analyzed how the vocabulary in their written impressions correlated with changes in their understanding.
Results
In the cluster analysis, children were categorized into two groups based on their pre-viewing questionnaire results: Group A (n = 116), who answered Question A incorrectly, and Group B (n = 158), who answered Question B incorrectly. For both groups, we generated dendrograms using Ward's method to classify their vocabulary responses into seven clusters each. In Group A, two clusters stood out: Cluster A-1 (n = 16), characterized by keywords such as “protagonist,” “father,” and “Ken,” and Cluster A-6 (n = 25), featuring terms like “tectonic plate,” “earth,” and “erode.” In Group B, the most distinctive clusters were Cluster B-2 (n = 26), associated with “tectonic plate,” “Shōmyō Falls,” and “high”; Cluster B-5 (n = 20), which prominently featured the keyword “earth”; and Cluster B-7 (n = 16), linked to words such as “protagonist,” “nature,” and “pass away.”
Among the 116 children in Group A, 44 successfully answered Question A correctly in the post-viewing questionnaire. In Cluster A-1, 10 of the 16 children—over half—transitioned to a correct response. Among the 158 children in Group B, 61 provided a correct response in the post-viewing questionnaire. In Cluster B-2, 15 of the 26 children—again, more than half—provided a correct response in the post-viewing questionnaire.
Discussion
These results suggest that children in Clusters A-1 and B-7 were primarily influenced by the film's dramatized elements, as indicated by their frequent use of narrative-focused vocabulary. Although these children demonstrated a stronger tendency than others to improve their understanding of Question A, a comparable pattern was not observed for Question B. Thus, the dramatized aspects of the film appear to have only a limited impact on comprehension. Conversely, children in Clusters A-6 and B-2, who primarily used vocabulary related to Earth's geological processes, exhibited a greater tendency to improve their understanding of Question B compared to other children; however, no similar improvement was observed for Question A. In other words, these children may have developed a biased understanding of mountain-height changes, concentrating solely on either uplift or erosion instead of integrating both processes.