Students’ conceptual understanding of electricity and magnetism and its implications: A review

Abstract

Physics subject continues to be considered as difficult and unattractive by students. This leads to the development of negative attitudes towards the subject. Electricity and magnetism as one of the most important areas in physics is particularly considered as difficult due to their abstract nature. Different studies on students’ conceptual understanding of electricity and magnetism have been conducted and several instructional strategies for a conceptual change in this subject matter have been provided. However, there are still some persisting misconceptions even after being treated by those suggested instructional strategies. By using diagnostic tests and remedial approaches to sort out learning barriers, there is a possibility that students’ performance might improve, which would likely lead to disappearing these learning barriers and retaining the appropriate concepts over time scales beyond the assessment schedule of individual classes. Therefore, after reporting on the impact of students’ preconceptions on learning, this review paper also highlights some existing studies on students’ misconceptions in electricity and magnetism. The paper also updates physics educators and researchers on some conceptual tests and assessments used to test students’ misconceptions in electricity and magnetism and some suggested strategies for remedying those misconceptions. Some educational implications and practical recommendations for effective teaching and learning in electricity and magnetism are also outlined.

Improving secondary school students’ physics achievement through scaffold simulated analogical reasoning strategy

“…Besides, many of the concepts of electricity and magnetism are abstract in nature in which they cannot be directly observed like those of velocity and acceleration of a moving car in mechanics (Li, 2012). Mbonyiryivuze et al (2019) also indicated that the mathematical formulas are a little bit complex to use them in solving problems in relation to electricity and magnetism. Therefore, from these natures of electricity and magnetism, there has to be a need of using students' prior knowledge and experience for the learning of new concepts and algorithms with a visualized manner for creating mental models through the use of active learning methods.…”

Alternative Teaching Methods in Electricity and Magnetism

“…It has also been noted that when asked solve problems in many poor countries, a large majority of students lack the requisite conceptual understanding. (Mbonyiryivuze. 2019).…”

“…Traditional teaching strategies which are usually teacher-centered have been claimed to be ineffective in developing students' conceptual understanding. Some studies reported that noticeable conceptual understanding change in learners after being taught using traditional teaching methods was short-lived (Mbonyiryivuze, 2019). A main concern for educational researchers and educators has been finding ways to improve current learning techniques to consequently improve students' conceptual understanding.…”

Conceptual Fields and Magnetic Field: a theoretical model for epistemological classification of tasks in magnetostatics

“…Processes of teaching and learning the concept of magnetic field have been objects of research throughout time and results point to huge difficulties due to teachers in teaching this content and students in learning it (Zuza, Van Kampen, de Cock, Kelly, & Guisasola, 2018;Mbonyiryivuze, Yadav & Amadalo, 2020;Zuza, Almudí, & Guisasola, 2012;Pantoja & Moreira, 2019b). The background does not seem to change from High School to Higher Education, including courses of teacher training.…”