Difficulties in learning the concept of electric field

Abstract

This article analyzes students' main difficulties in learning the concept of the electric field. To carry out this analysis we have supposed that the historical study of the main qualitative leaps that have taken place in the construction of the theory of field may help to diagnose such difficulties. Thus, we have made a brief description of the main conceptual profiles within which electric interactions can be interpreted (Coulombian and Maxwellian) and examined to what extent they are used by students in sixth form and in university. To achieve this we have devised and applied an open question questionnaire and personal. The results obtained showed that most students, even university students, have ontological and epistemological difficulties using the idea of the electric field, thus preferring the use of reasoning based on the Newtonian model of action at a distance to solve problems. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed 82:511–526, 1998.

High school students’ representations and understandings of electric fields

“…Furio and Guisasola [2] administered a questionnaire to investigate high school and college students' ontological and epistemological beliefs about electromagnetic interactions. They reviewed the historical development of theories of electromagnetism with respect to the evolving epistemology held by scientists in different eras.…”

“…The concept of an electric field is usually introduced in high school and college physics. Studies that have investigated students' understandings of electric fields have documented ideas prevalently held by students: for example, big charges exert stronger forces [1], field lines represent the trajectories of moving charges [2,3], and electric forces act at a distance with no necessary medium [2].…”

“…The research methods primarily adopted in previous studies to assess students' ideas were having students answer textbook-style questions in questionnaires and interviews [1][2][3][4]. Because the questions were written in disciplinaryspecific language (physics terms, formulas, and principles), such research was insufficient to capture the ideas students may also have but tend to describe in nondisciplinary language.…”

Effect of instruction based on conceptual change activities on students’ understanding of static electricity concepts

“…During the developmental stage of the test, the following procedure was followed: firstly, the instructional objectives of the unit electrostatics were stated. Secondly, a classification of students' misconceptions in electrostatics was constructed by a careful examination of related literature (Eylon & Ganiel, 1990;McMillan & Swadner, 1991, Heuvelen, 1991Galili, 1993;Caillot & Xuan, 1993;Törnkovist et al, 1993;Guruswamy et al, 1997;Furio & Guisasola, 1998;Thacker et al, 1999) and the result of interviews with the experienced teachers. The classification of students' misconceptions used in the test is presented in Appendix A. Lastly, the test items were constructed in such a way that each distracter or item brings out students' alternative conceptions related to electrostatics.…”

Some Student Conceptions of Electromagnetic Induction

“…Some studies of the difficulties faced by students learning the concepts of electromagnetism suggest that these difficulties mimic those faced by early scientists when they were forming a model to explain electromagnetic phenomena (Furió & Guisasola, 1998;Pocovi & Finley, 2002). Others claim that difficulties are due to the mismatch of knowledge transferred from other topics in physics to electromagnetism (Galili, 1995;Rainson, Tranströmer, & Viennot, 1994).…”