Multimodal Interaction in Science Education
Summary
Multimodal interaction in science education refers to the coordinated use of diverse communicative modes—spoken and written language, gesture, visualisation, digital media and hands-on artefacts—to support sense-making, concept development and collaborative inquiry. Grounded in perspectives from cognitive science, social semiotics and embodied cognition, this approach recognises that learners draw upon a repertoire of semiotic resources when engaging with scientific phenomena. Effective orchestration of these resources by educators can enhance attention to conceptual subtleties, support inclusive participation and bridge abstract ideas with tangible experience. Recent advances in digital technologies, such as augmented reality and multimodal analytics, have further enabled real-time feedback and adaptive scaffolding. Globally, research emphasises the potential of multimodal designs to promote equity by valuing non-verbal and culturally situated ways of knowing, while also fostering deeper engagement through interactive simulations, collaborative video‐analysis and dynamic representations of complex systems.
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Multimodal Interaction in Science Education publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in multimodal interaction in science education across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Multimodal interaction: The integrated use of multiple communicative modes (e.g. language, gesture, image, artefact) to support teaching and learning.
Social semiotics: An analytical lens that interprets meaning-making as a social practice shaped by the affordances of different semiotic resources.
Embodied cognition: A theoretical stance asserting that cognitive processes are grounded in bodily action and sensorimotor experience.
Orchestration: The deliberate planning and real-time management of multimodal resources by educators to guide learning interactions.
References
- Representations of science content in a primary classroom: Combining long and short timescales for multimodal analysis. Science Education (2023).
- Multimodal Interaction Analysis: a Powerful Tool for Examining Plurilingual Students’ Engagement in Science Practices. Research in Science Education (2021).
- Analysing Multimodal Texts in Science—a Social Semiotic Perspective. Research in Science Education (2021).
- Teacher Orchestration of Language and Gesture in Explaining Science Concepts in Images. Research in Science Education (2021).
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