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Juan Garzon and Julian Bautista did a case study with 40 first year engineering students in Columbia who were taking an algebra course. They presented virtual algebra tiles for a random set of 20 of them to use and recorded their understanding of the concepts and their long-term retention compared to the other 20 students who were given a traditional lecture. They found that the students who used the virtual algebra tiles learned the concept better and long-term retention increased.

Reference:

Garzón J, Bautista J. Virtual Algebra Tiles: A pedagogical tool to teach and learn algebra through geometry. J Comput Assist Learn. 2018; 34: 876–883. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12296