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Student examples of visual representations for the force-field confusion category for items 1 and 2 in each context.
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Studying students’ problem-solving abilities in physics education research has consistently shown that novices focus on a problem’s surface features rather than its physical principles. Previous research has observed that some electricity and magnetism students confuse electricity and magnetism concepts, often presented in parallel problems (or pro...
Citations
... De Winter and Airey [46] explored the vital connection between mathematics and physics in cultivating future physics teachers' ability to integrate mathematics into their instruction, resulting in deeper conceptual understanding for their students. Hernandez et al. [47] provided insights into students' perception and comprehension of electric and magnetic interactions, which could assist teachers in tailoring their lesson plans to accommodate their students' conceptual perspectives better. McGregor and Pleasants [48] suggested reorganizing Snell's law instruction to develop conceptual knowledge before introducing mathematical aspects could lead to a more profound understanding of the subject matter. ...
Assessment for learning (AFL) is a pedagogical approach that enhances student learning outcomes through high-quality feedback. This study investigates the effectiveness of integrating the feedback loop model (FLM) with AFL to improve students' engagement and understanding of physics, specifically in kinematics and motion dynamics. The study employs a mixed-methods research design, combining quantitative and qualitative data to assess the impact of the FLM-based AFL approach. A one-group pretest-posttest design was used, supported by research instruments that measured student engagement and their conceptual grasp of physics. The findings indicate that integrating FLM into AFL led to significant improvements, evidenced by Cohen’s effect size of 1.91, highlighting a substantial impact on student learning. These results affirm that FLM-based AFL positively affects student engagement and understanding of physics. The study contributes to the existing research on effective assessment methods, providing valuable insights for educators and policymakers in developing enhanced assessment and teaching strategies. This study emphasizes the potential benefits of incorporating FLM-based AFL in diverse educational settings to elevate student learning experiences and outcomes.
... Phenomenography has also been used to characterize physics faculty's beliefs and approaches to instructional change [24,25]. More narrowly, researchers have examined students' problem solving approaches in introductory physics [26] and to characterize students' conceptual understanding of particular physics topics such as electric and magnetic interactions [27]. Outside the DBER context, phenomenography has been used in higher education to study how academics conceptualize research, particularly capturing the different ways faculty and graduate students understand the nature of academic work [28,29]. ...
Various motivations bring researchers to discipline-based education research (DBER), but there is little research on their conceptualization of and navigation into this new-to-them area of research. We use phenomenography to analyze interview data collected from twenty-eight emerging STEM education researchers to gain a better understanding of how they perceive themselves within DBER and what they perceive it to be. Grounded in the figured worlds theoretical framework, we identify the spectrum of ways emerging STEM education researchers identify or project themselves into this new space: to improve their teaching, to make it their new primary research field, and/or to negotiate how it will fit with their primary one. We also highlight salient negotiations that emerge because of the close ties between DBER and disciplinary science, which provides us with a better understanding of emerging researchers' perceptions. This work generates insight into the kinds of professional development opportunities that would support emerging education researchers within STEM departments and the broader DBER community.
... Other students accessing it do not have another way to explain it; they use it. This mnemonic-type student conception has been previously reported (Hernandez et al., 2022). Li and Singh (2016) reported in a study with non-identical bulbs that students erroneously consider that "the brightness of both light bulbs in series should be the same." ...
Research on conceptual understanding is one of the first steps in designing materials to improve learning. Literature reports that students have difficulties analyzing and describing phenomena in electric circuits. This report contributes to students' conceptual difficulties regarding simple electrical circuits by systematically analyzing an open conceptual test answered by 531 first-year engineering students. We found students' reasoning that has not yet been reported in the literature as misconceptions or difficulties. To deepen our understanding of students' difficulties, we chose five students by convenience to interview. We present evidence that there are two main contributions to the taxonomy in this study: the Series Circuit Misconception, which is when students convey that the current through bulbs is the same because they are in series, using that as a mnemonic ignoring any change in the circuit; and the Inverse Parallel Circuit Misconception, that is when students mention that the resistance of the circuit decreases when disconnecting bulbs in parallel, neither are reported in the literature. The results of this study have implications for physics education research in electric circuits and educational practice in the classroom.
... After magnetism instruction, the interference reverts; students tend to answer electric force questions with magnetic force answers Scaife & Heckler, 2011). A study about 2 / 12 students' understanding of electric and magnetic fields and interactions found a higher tendency to use electricity concepts to answer questions about the magnetic field Hernandez et al., 2022). These findings hint that there may be other causes of interference besides the timing of instruction, such as rote learning (or memorization). ...
... Based on the literature about interference between electricity and magnetism concepts and our observations while analyzing the data for previous studies (Barniol & Zavala, 2015, Campos et al., 2023Hernandez et al., , 2021Hernandez et al., , 2022, we found the opportunity to identify how some elements of magnetism may be present when students reason about Gauss's law, and elements of electricity may be present when students reason about Ampere's law. By the elements of electricity or magnetism, we mean specific words in students' explanations or specific letters in students' written equations that hint at the opposite context (for example, calling the electric field the "magnetic field"). ...
... The questionnaires use parallel representations, a characteristic further exploited in the related publications (Campos et al., , 2023Hernandez, , 2022. ...
Due to the similarities between Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws, students can present cognitive interference when learning these laws in the introductory physics course. This study aims to analyze the interference patterns that emerge in students’ answers when solving problems that involve Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws and related concepts (e.g., electric flux and magnetic circulation). We conducted a study of 322 engineering students attending a private Mexican university. We applied two open-ended questionnaires with questions that prompted using Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws. We analyzed students’ answers to identify whether they presented some word or element of an equation from the opposite context and coded them into coding families. We analyzed the consistency of interference by counting the times each student presented some interference in general and by coding family. The results indicated that the interferences related to the shape of the Gaussian surface or Amperian trajectory and field-related concepts are shared among contexts. However, the interference related to the source of the field (charge or current) is predominant in magnetism. In contrast, the interference related to using elements from the opposite context in an equation predominates in electricity. In other words, students referred to currents as charges and wrote equations that contained B (for magnetic field) or other similar elements in Gauss’s law. The general consistency analysis revealed that around half the students presented at least one interference in both contexts. We recommend that the interference between electricity and magnetism in Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws must not be overlooked. This study’s findings can guide introductory and intermediate electricity and magnetism instructors to address this interference phenomenon.
... [3,4] showed that some students could not distinguish a force from a field. Other works explored the confusion between forces and fields (electric and magnetic) [1,2,5,6] or even confusion between the two contexts, known as the interference phenomenon [2,4,7,8]. Different explanations for each confusion can exist, such as the visual representation used [2] or the test implementation moment [4]. ...
... Finally, results from previous studies that used parallel problems (problems with similar surface features but different underlying principles) suggest that electricity and magnetism represent two very similar phenomena for some students, not because their fundamental concepts are similar, but because of their parallel surface features [2,4,7,9,19]. This generates a necessity to inquire about students' conceptual understanding in both contexts, simultaneously and with similar external characteristics [20], to have a clearer view of their conceptual difficulties with this way of comprehending electricity and magnetism. ...
... This research was conducted in a large private Mexican university with 322 participants enrolled in several introductory, calculus-based electricity and magnetism course classes previously described [2][3][4]7], which employed a known textbook [21] and tutorials [22]. Each class (group) comprised 30-40 students. ...
Electricity and magnetism are closely related phenomena with a well-known symmetry found in Maxwell equations. An essential part of any electricity and magnetism course includes the analysis of different field source distributions through Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws to compute and interpret different physical quantities, such as electric flux, electric and magnetic field, or magnetic circulation. Still, some students have difficulties with these calculations or, in some cases, identifying the differences between those quantities. We present this article to explore and compare the challenges that students experience when asked to compute the electric flux (surface integral of the electric field) or the magnetic circulation (line integral of the magnetic field) in a nonsymmetric field-source distribution with two opposite field sources inside a Gaussian spherical surface or Amperian circular trajectory. The sample consisted of 322 engineering students finishing an electricity and magnetism course. They were presented with two parallel problems. Half answered one in the electricity context and the other in the magnetism context. After a phenomenographic analysis, our results showed that the students’ conceptual difficulties in both contexts can be grouped into the same categories but are not contextually parallel, as has happened when analyzing other electricity and magnetism concepts. Our results also suggest that the magnetic circulation concept is far more unfamiliar to students than the electric flux. We propose several factors that could explain this finding and suggest teaching to address the conceptual difficulties identified in our analysis.
... We compare the categories that emerged from students' responses in both contexts. This study is part of a broader investigation where the research team has compared students' understanding of different topics of electricity and magnetism [4,16,19,20]. This contribution focuses on students' understanding of symmetry in the context of Gauss's and Ampere's laws. ...
... Another difference between the two contexts emerged in the number of unanswered or unexplained answers. The data show a tendency to leave blank questions or unexplained answers more often in the magnetism context than in the electricity context, as has been observed in a previous study [20]. Students can find the topics of magnetism more challenging than the topics of electricity due to several factors, such as the mathematical formalism required to perform vector products and the need to work in three dimensions [28,34]. ...
Identifying students’ difficulties in understanding Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws is important for developing educational strategies that promote an expertlike understanding of the field concept and Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetic phenomena. This study aims to analyze and compare students’ understanding of symmetry when applying Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws to calculate the electric or magnetic field. We conducted a study to analyze how students reason regarding the symmetry conditions necessary to apply Gauss’s or Ampere’s laws to calculate the electric or magnetic field in three inverse problems. We applied two open-ended questionnaires with parallel surface features, one for Gauss’s law and the other for Ampere’s law, to 322 engineering students. The three inverse problems present different scenarios with the common characteristic that there is no sufficient symmetry to solve the electric or magnetic field from its corresponding equation. We analyzed students’ answers with a phenomenographic approach, focusing on students’ answers to a yes or no question and their reasoning. The main findings of the study are the descriptive categories of understanding and the comparison of the categories between contexts (outcome space). The correct reasoning is identifying the necessary symmetry to apply Gauss’s or Ampere’s law. The other categories refer to the surface features of each scenario to explain students’ answers, applying Gauss’s or Ampere’s law in an oversimplified way and thinking that it would be possible but more complicated in these scenarios. The descriptive categories are related to some of the difficulties previously reported in the literature with standard problems involving Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws. However, inverse problems elicited variations in the types of reasoning related to the surface features of the scenarios and their parallel representations. The comparative analysis between the electricity and magnetism contexts allowed for identifying that analyzing currents can be more challenging for students than analyzing point charges. This study’s findings can guide introductory and intermediate electricity and magnetism instructors to redirect their approach to Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws by introducing the analysis of inverse problems.
Contributions: This article provides valuable insights into the varying approaches of engineering students in their understanding and application of project-based learning (PBL) and its relationship with student success. The findings can be used to improve the design and implementation of effective learning environments, evaluate the effectiveness of engineering education programs, and advance the current understanding of the relationship between PBL and knowledge acquisition in engineering. Background: Previous research has demonstrated that PBL has become a significant teaching and learning method in engineering education. It has resulted in considerable progress in students’ problem-solving and critical thinking skills, teamwork, and technical concept communication. However, there is still a lack of exploration on how engineering students perceive PBL from their standpoint and how their conceptions influence student learning. This study aims to contribute to the currently limited comprehension of PBL from the students’ perspective. Research Questions: What are the qualitatively different ways engineering students conceptualize PBL, and how does PBL contribute to knowledge and skill acquisition? Methodology: A phenomenographic approach was used to gather data from engineering students who had experienced PBL in their course. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather rich and detailed data about the students’ conceptions of PBL. The data was then analyzed using a phenomenographic framework to identify how engineering students conceived PBL. Findings: Students’ conceptions of PBL are not uniform but vary in five different pedagogical beliefs that shape how they act in the PBL environment. The different conceptions of PBL in engineering education suggest that instructors need to communicate the learning objectives of PBL more clearly to students, and design PBL activities that cater to the diverse needs and expectations of students.
The physical principles of electromagnetism are hard for students to understand, even though they explain our surrounding world, including technology. Active learning methodologies play an important role in students’ learning processes of such concepts. Using project-based learning, with the appropriate project, students can be engaged in any science subject. This paper studies the impact of two striking real-life projects utilizing concepts related to different learning course objectives on students’ problem-solving skills through theoretical calculations of the projects before building the prototype.
DESCRIPTION
In this chapter we highlight some of the physics education literature on students' ideas about electricity and magnetism. The research reviewed spans all age groups and includes work carried out within a wide variety of frameworks. We start the chapter with students' ideas about electric charge, attraction and repulsion, charging, polarization, and magnetic interactions primarily from a qualitative viewpoint. We then describe research related to students adopting a more quantitative approach: electrostatic and magnetostatic force and field; the superposition principle; electric potential, electric potential energy, and capacitance. Sections on representations and commonly used diagnostic tests serve as a bridge to more advanced topics that often also require more advanced mathematical techniques such as integration and vector calculus: Gauss' Law, Ampère's Law, and Faraday's Law. Throughout the chapter we highlight where we have found gaps in the literature.
