Effect of display platforms on spatial knowledge acquisition and engagement: an evaluation with 3D geometry visualizations

With the recent rapid development of display technologies, interactive visualizations have become increasingly important to enhance content exploration in various domains, including learning. Desktop displays, mobile tablet multi-touch displays, and, more recently, virtual reality head-mounted displays have become readily accessible devices for interacting with visualizations. Despite their widespread use, it is still unclear how the type of device can influence the presentation of, interaction with, and learning from interactive visualizations. In this research, we have designed and conducted an experiment to evaluate the effects of these types of devices in the exploration of mathematical visualizations. An interactive visualization tool is designed and implemented with 3D geometry as our testbed. Our goal is to gain a better understanding of the effects of device types on supporting analytical reasoning with interactive visualizations. In general, our results indicate that the tool in all three types of devices can be equally efficient and engaging in interactive learning activities. We discuss the findings and suggestions based on the experiment results in the discussion.