We study the misconceptions about colour that most people hold, determining the general phenomenological laws that govern them. Concept mapping was used to combat the misconceptions which were found in the application of a test specifically designed to determine these misconceptions, while avoiding the possible misleading inductions that could have arisen from the use of everyday language. In particular, care was taken to avoid the distorting effect that the use of the verb 'to be' applied to coloured objects could have on the responses. The misconceptions found were shown to have an internal consistency in the form of authentic minitheories (implicit theories). We compared experimentally the results of two different teaching methods applied to combat these misconceptions. This study was conducted with 470 undergraduates of the University of Extremadura. We analysed the persistence over time of their learning made to overcome those misconceptions. The students were divided randomly into an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). To combat their misconceptions, EG were taught following a method based on the use of concept maps, and CG were taught following traditional teaching methods. The results of a pre-test and a post-test were compared for the two groups, finding statistically significant differences. The results allowed the principal working hypothesis to be accepted-concept maps are learning tools which foster conceptual change and allow misconceptions to be eradicated via meaningful learning maintained over time, i.e. EG acquired a relative long-lasting gain in learning that was superior to that acquired by CG.

This work presents an educational simulation to support students' learning about the formation of the rainbow. The main aim of the simulation is to provide our students with a didactic tool in addition to their traditional laboratory practice, which can be easily implemented in e-learning teaching platforms. A system consisting of a flask filled with water and a screen with a rounded aperture placed between the sun and the flask was simulated; this way a faint rainbow was seen on the simulated screen. The interactive nature of the simulation allowed the students to perform some alterations that would be impossible to do in the real world; thus, the observed rainbow deviated from the simplest model. Additionally, all these modifications could be rendered into an animation, in order to observe changes in real time.

A set of computer simulations with a higher degree of realism is presented. These hyper‐realistic simulations, used to teach basic concepts about color, were developed using the POV‐Ray software. The main aim of these simulations is to provide our students with a didactic tool in addition to their traditional laboratory practice, which can be easily implemented in e‐learning teaching platforms. The simulations of optical systems developed have resulted in graphical outputs that achieve photographic quality, which helped our students, even those with less capacity for abstraction, to combat misconceptions about color. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 41, 330–332, 2016

In this work, we present an online test designed to ascertain what type of misconceptions people may have about color perception. It is noteworthy that only 15.7% of the over 20,000 respondents answered correctly, and that the vast majority (78.2%) of incorrect response patterns on our test matched to just four sequences, corresponding with four types of misconceptions.

This work presents a new formulation of the laws of reflection of light, and it is shown the equivalence between the new and the classic formulations. The proposed formulation has a significant educational value, as it allows drawing analogies between the phenomena of light reflection and elastic collisions, which are very well known by students. The new developed statement of the law of reflection allows the resolution of traditional problems of geometrical optics, and in some cases the solution is much simpler and more intuitive than that obtained using the traditional statement of the laws of reflection. As an example, this formulation is applied for the resolution of the classic reflection problem of the three plane mirrors forming a trirectangular trihedron, also known as corner reflector. Keywords: Reflection of light, laws of reflection, new formulation, vectors, education.Este trabalho apresenta uma nova formulação das leis de reflexão da luz, mostrando a equivalência com a formulação clássica. A formulação proposta tem um valor educativo bem significativo, pois permite estabelecer analogias entre os fenômenos de reflexão da luz e as colisões elásticas, que são bem conhecidas pelos alunos. O novo enunciado da lei da reflexão permite a resolução de problemas tradicionais daóptica geométrica; em alguns casos, a nova soluçãoé muito mais simples e intuitiva do que a solução obtida através do enunciado tradicional das leis da reflexão. Como exemplo, esta formulaçãoé aplicada para a resolução do problema de reflexão clássico dos três espelhos planos que formam um triedro trirretangular, também conhecido como refletor de canto. Palavras-chave: Reflexão da luz, leis da reflexão, vetores.

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: In medicine, the awareness of reducing medication errors and risk situations for patients has increased in recent years, due to different driving forces such as patient advocate movements, and quality management strategies of health centers and regulatory bodies. However, this awareness should be reflected in the integration of strategies to prevent errors and risks by training medical students, residents, and specialists in patient safety principles. The inclusion of technologies for tridimensional visualization, such as virtual reality enables the development of innovative training proposals that contribute to a patient safety culture. The objective of this project was to design a virtual reality environment for the training on patient safety culture by triangulating the perspectives of teachers, the hospital, and the school of medicine. The development consisted of the phases of planning, design, and implementation. Planning referred to the development of learning objectives and conceptualization of scenarios. The design consisted of the technical exploration of the different tools, and the iteration on the generation of a working prototype. As a result, a virtual setting was developed for medical students to familiarize themselves and understand the environment and the processes of quality care. The reported experience proposes key elements for new developers to consider, the link to the needs of the organization, and the technical feasibility of the systems that are now available in the market. Keywords: higher education, educational innovation, educational technology, virtual reality, medical education, patient safety