Development and Evaluation of the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’

to Support the Observation and Identification of Indicator

Plants for Vegetation Succession

Keita Muratsu

, Fusako Kusunoki

, Yoshiaki Takeda

, Haruka Inoue

, Etsuji Yamaguchi

Shigenori Inagaki

, Hiroshi Mizoguchi

and Masanori Sugimoto

Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University, 3-11 Tsurukabuto, Kobe, Japan

Faculty of Art and Design, Tama Art University, 3-15-34 Kaminoge Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Faculty of Human Development, Kobe University, 3-11 Tsurukabuto, Kobe, Japan

Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, 2461 Yamasaki Noda-shi, Chiba, Japan

Graduate School of information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University,

Kita 14, Nishi 9 Kita-ku, Sapporo Hokkaido, Japan

Keywords: Mobile Systems, Outdoor Learning, Science Learning.

Abstract: We developed and evaluated a mobile system called ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ for support the observation and

identification of indicator plants for vegetation succession. One characteristic of the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ is

that it uses sketches instead of photographs. This guide contains 3 representative functions that help students

in identifying and observing of indicator plants. These functions include (1) coloured representations of

leaves and fruits; (2) enlarged images of leaves and fruits; and (3) sketches of the backside of the leaves. We

allowed Japanese sixth grade elementary school students (age 11–12 years) to use the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ to

identify and observe indicator plants. After this activity, we used a questionnaire to evaluate the ease with

which the students used the guide, and validated the usefulness of the guide for identifying and observing

indictor plants. The results indicated that the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ was quite easy to use and was effective in

supporting the identification and observation of indicator plants.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the area of the science education, an important

aspect of studying plants is to observe these in

nature, in addition to accumulating classroom

knowledge. However, field identification and

observation of plant types or names is often difficult

when using a large textbook. In recent years,

research has been conducted on using a mobile

device to support the identification and observation

of plants. Previous studies have shown the

effectiveness of mobile devices in identifying and

observing plants (Morita et al., 2004; Huang et al.,

2010). Kusunoki et al., (2011) initiated the

development ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ as a mobile

system to support the efforts of students in

identifying and observing indicator plants. The

‘Pocket Plant Guide’ is a system designed to present

information on 12 types of representative indicator

plants during the early, middle, and late stages of

vegetation succession using an iPhone/iPod Touch

platform. The indicator plants used in the guide were

selected from vegetation succession studies

conducted in the Rokko Mountains of Kobe, Japan.

While previous systems used photographs, the

‘Pocket Plant Guide’ uses sketches, which is one of

its defining characteristics. As is often stressed in

scientific practice, scientists alter the natural world

in some way to facilitate the observation of subjects,

(Lynch, 1990). Scientific activity, such as the

identification and observation of plants, are usually

accomplished through sketches instread of

photographs and this is because it is easier to

visualise the characteristics of plants as a drawing,

compared to photographs.

Inoue et al. (2012) conducted a preliminary

evaluation of the pilot version of this guide. The

results of this initial study indicated that the guide

was effective in supporting the identification and

675

Muratsu K., Kusunoki F., Takeda Y., Inoue H., Yamaguchi E., Inagaki S., Mizoguchi H. and Sugimoto M..

Development and Evaluation of the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ to Support the Observation and Identiﬁcation of Indicator Plants for Vegetation Succession.

DOI: 10.5220/0004409306750679

In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2013), pages 675-679

ISBN: 978-989-8565-53-2

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

observation of indicator plants. In addition, we

obtained suggestions towards further development

of the contents and interface for the current version

of the guide.

We completed the development of the ‘Pocket

Plant Guide’ by incorporating the feedback from the

preliminary evaluation. The purpose of this study

was to determine the ease of use of the ‘Pocket Plant

Guide’ and to determine its effectiveness in

supporting the identification and observation of

indicator plants.

2 OUTLINE OF THE ‘POCKET

PLANT GUIDE’

Figure 1 shows the home screen of the ‘Pocket Plant

Guide’. Six types of indicator plants are shown as

icons on this screen. Flicking the screen to the left

reveals the remaining 6 types of indicator plants,

also shown as icons in Figure 2. The teacher

explained to the students that in order to display the

remaining 6 types of indicator plants, the screen

should be flicked to the left. When one of these

icons is tapped, for example, Rubus microphyllus, a

monochromatic sketch of the indicator plant in

Figure 3 appears.

Figure 1: Home screen of the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’.

This guide includes 3 fundamental functions that

support the identification and observation of

indicator plants. First, the characteristic parts of the

indicator plant are shown as colour sketches. This

function helps to identify indicator plants that have

distinct leaf or fruit colour features. If the user taps

the monochromatic sketch in Figure 3, the

characteristic parts of the indicator plant are shown

Figure 2: Screenshot of the remaining 6 types of indicator

plants.

Figure 3: Screenshot of the monochromatic sketch of

characteristics of the indicator plant.

in colour, and a comment describing the

characteristic is displayed at Figure 4. In this colour

sketch, the characteristic red fruit of R. microphyllus

is shown.

A second function is the ability to enlarge the

leaf and fruit sketches of indicator plants. This

feature was included to support the identification

and observation of indicator plants that have

characteristic leaf shapes or leaf veins. If the loupe

icon is tapped at the bottom of Figure 4, an enlarged

leaf is shown. Figure 5 shows the upper side of the

enlarged leaf of R. microphyllus. The characteristic 2

large notches of its leaf are shown. Tapping the x

button at the top right corner of the screen returns

the user to the previous screen (colour sketch).

Third, users are able to examine the backside of

a leaf by rotating the indicator plant leaf. This

feature

may be used to identify and observe

CSEDU2013-5thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation

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Figure 4: Screenshot of the colour sketch of characteristics

of the indicator plant.

Figure 5: Screenshot showing the upper side of an

enlarged leaf.

Figure 6: Screenshot showing the backside of an enlarged

leaf.

characteristic leaf shapes and vein structures on the

backside of indicator plants. If a user taps the

enlarged image of the upper side of the leaf in the

Figure 5, an enlarged image of the backside of the

leaf appears. Figure 6 shows the backside of R.

microphyllus leaf. The characteristic white colour of

the backside of the Rubus microphyllus plant leaf

is shown on this screen. Tapping the screen once

more returns the user to the previous screen (upper

side of the leaf).

3 EVALUATION OF THE

‘POCKET PLANT GUIDE’

3.1 Evaluation Method

3.1.1 Purpose

The purpose of evaluation was two-fold: (1) to

determine whether the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ is easy

to use for elementary school students, and (2) to

determine the efficacy of the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ in

supporting elementary school students in identifying

and observing indicator plants.

3.1.2 Subjects

The subjects were 35 elementary school students

(age range: 11–12 years) from an elementary school

attached to a Japanese national university.

3.1.3 Task

The research task was to evaluate the ease-of-use of

the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ and evaluate its efficacy in

supporting the identification and observation of

indicator plants. The questionnaire contained 13

questions, of which 7 were related to the ease-of-use

of the ‘Pocket Plant Guide.’ Sample items included

‘I could easily touch/tap the screen with my

fingertips’ and ‘I could easily manipulate the plant

sketch screen to the more detailed characteristics

screen.’ The remaining 6 items addressed the 3

characteristic functions of the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’

and its efficacy in identifying and observing

indicator plants. For example, with respect to the

coloured sketches of the indicator plants, items such

as ‘the coloured sketches helped me identify the real

plant’ were included. For each of these items,

students were asked to select one of the following 4

options: I think so, I mostly think so, I don’t quite

think so, and I don’t think so. Printed questionnaire

sheets were distributed.

DevelopmentandEvaluationofthe'PocketPlantGuide'toSupporttheObservationandIdentificationofIndicatorPlants

forVegetationSuccession

677

3.1.4 Procedure

The students were divided into groups of 6 and were

asked to identify and observe the 12 types of

indicator plants in the guide. The activity was

conducted indoors. Each student was given the

‘Pocket Plant Guide’ for use. The activity time was

approximately 20 min. After the identification of

indicator plants, the students were asked to answer

the questionnaire, which took approximately 15 min.

The evaluation was conducted on November 17,

2012.

3.2 Results

Table 1 shows the students’ response to each item in

the questionnaire. We interpreted the responses ‘I

think so’ and ‘I mostly think so’ as positive

responses, whereas ‘I don’t quite think so’ and ‘I

don’t think so’ were classified as negative responses.

We then performed Fisher’s exact test to identify

patterns in the students’ responses.

First, we discussed the results of the 7 items in

terms of ease-of-use. In 6 out of the 7 items,

significantly more students answered positively than

negatively (p < 0.01). However, for item 6, no

significant differences were observed between the

number of students that answered positively or

negatively (p > 0.10).

Next, we examined the results of the evaluation

for the 6 items related to the guide’s efficacy in

supporting the identification and observation of

indicator plants. For all 6 items, significantly more

students answered positively than negatively (p <

0.01).

4 CONCLUSIONS & FUTURE

WORK

We developed and analysed the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’

in this study. The characteristic functions of this

guide are: (1) the colour display function of leaves

and fruits; (2) the enlargement function of leaves

and fruits; and (3) the backside view of leaves.

First, we discussed the ease-of-use of the guide. The

results of the assessment showed that the number of

positive responses was significantly higher for all

but one item indicating the ease of use of the ‘Pocket

Plant Guide’ by the students. However, no

significant differences between the positive and

negative responses for the questionnaire item ‘I can

easily switch from the enlarged image of leaves and

fruits to the screen showing the plant characteristics.’

were observed. One reason for this was that the

button

to return from the enlarged sketch of leaves

Table 1: Assessment of the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’.

Ease-of-Use ITS IMTS IDQTS IDTS

01 I can easily touch/tap with my fingers ** 14 14 7 0

02 I can easily switch from the plant selection screen to the plant sketch

screen **

25 9 1 0

03 I can easily switch from the plant sketch screen to the screen showing

plant characteristics **

20 12 3 0

04 I can easily switch from the characteristics screen to the enlarged

images of fruits and leaves by tapping the loupe icon **

20 11 4 0

05 I can easily rotate the sketches to view both sides of the leaf ** 18 9 7 1

06 I can easily switch from the enlarged images of leaves and fruits to the

screen with the plant characteristics *

15 7 9 4

07 I can easily switch from the characteristics screen to the plant selection

screen **

25 6 3 1

Effectiveness in plant identification and observation ITS IMTS IDQTS IDTS

[For sketches with coloured plant parts]

08 It helped me to find the real plant ** 27 7 1 0

09 It helped me to observe the real plant and its characteristics in detail ** 24 10 1 0

[ For enlarged sketches of leaves and fruits]

10 It helped me to find the real plant ** 26 8 1 0

11 It helped me to observe the real plant and its characteristics in detail ** 25 10 0 0

[For rotatable images of leaves that allow the student to view both sides]

12 It helped me to find the real plant ** 21 8 5 1

13 It helped me to observe the real plant and its characteristics in detail ** 19 13 2 1

N = 35; **p < 0.01; *n.s: not significant; ITS: I think so; IMTS: I mostly think so; IDQTS: I don’t quite think so; IDTS: I don’t think

CSEDU2013-5thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation

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and fruits to the screen with their characteristics was

too small. In the future, further improvements to the

interface of ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ will be necessary.

Next, we discussed the efficacy of the guide in

supporting the identification and observation of

indicator plants. For all items, the number of

positive responses was significantly greater. We

speculate that the following 2 factors affected this

outcome: (1) sufficient information was included in

the ‘Pocket Plant Guide’ that allowed the students to

identify indicator plants by the colour of its fruits or

leaves or the shape of the upper and backside of the

leaves; and (2) a sufficiently permissive

environment for the observation of plant

characteristics was obtained through the coloured

and enlarged sketches contained in the guide. On the

basis of these observations, we conclude that the

‘Pocket Plant Guide’ is an effective tool in

supporting the identification and observation of

indicator plants.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported in part by the

Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (No.

23300303).

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DevelopmentandEvaluationofthe'PocketPlantGuide'toSupporttheObservationandIdentificationofIndicatorPlants

forVegetationSuccession

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