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EUR. J. Sci. EDUC., 1984, v o l . 6, NO. 2, 185-198
Introduction
It has become clear in recent years that children, in learning science, may use
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conceptual models which in many cases differ from those which are essential
to understanding and efficient learning. These 'alternative frameworks', a
term coined by Driver and Easley (1978), are sometimes formed by children
as a result of their everyday experiences and before formal teaching of the
relevant subject matter, in which case they may be referred to as preconcep-
tions. There is accumulating evidence that these alternative frameworks,
whether they arise before or during instruction, may be very resistant to
extinction by normal teaching methods (e.g., Viennot 1979).
A number of studies have investigated the preconceptions concerning
current flow which were held by young children, usually within the age range
8 to 12 years (e.g., Tiberghien and Delacote 1976, Osborne 1982 a). Interest
centred here on very simple circuits, often comprising no more than a
battery, a few connecting wires and a bulb. Typically these young children
treated the lamp as a one terminal device with current flowing to it rather
than through it. Andersson and Karrqvist (1979) and Osborne (1981)
extended these investigations to students of up to 17 years of age and found
that, despite teaching, many of them were still using typical, pre-
instructional models well into the period of formal instruction. Fredette and
Lochhead (1980) discovered similar misconceptions amongst university
entrants studying engineering.
The study described here examines the models of current flow which
children use when dealing with slightly more complex circuits, extending to
those which include resistors, either fixed or variable, and connected in series
or parallel.
Methodology
A pencil-and-paper test was devised which consisted of ten sets of questions
on the distributions of current and voltage, and the effects of resistance upon
these, in circuits containing cells, lamps and resistors. Lamps were used to
indicate current flow in these questions because the courses followed by the
children had adopted that approach in their initial stages. The circuit
symbols used were those with which the subjects were familiar.
The test was administered to whole classes drawn from the first four
years and the first year sixth-forms of three 11-18 comprehensive schools.
186 RESEARCH REPORTS
1 12 12 24 148 3-2
2 21 24 45 161 3-9
3 30 18 48 172 3-8
4 59 10 69 184 3-8
6 36 10 46 210 6-5
Because the resulting sixth-form sample was rather small, physics students
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from the first year of a sixth-form college were also included. Two of the
comprehensive schools served essentially residential areas. The sixth-form
college and the remaining comprehensive school drew their pupils from
quite wide and varied catchment areas. Details of the sample used are set out
in table 1.
In each of the first three years the samples covered most of the ability
range whilst the fourth-year pupils were all following physics courses leading
to either the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) or to the Ordinary
Level General Certificate of Education (GCE) examinations, both normally
taken at age sixteen. The sixth-year pupils were all studying physics at the
Advanced GCE level.
All of the pupils included in the final sample of 23 2 had studied electrical
circuits in the year in which they were tested, the sixth-year pupils having
completed their studies of DC circuitry. The teachers were asked to indicate
their pupils' abilities in physics by assessing the grades that they should
achieve or, in the case of the sixth-year pupils, by stating the grades they had
achieved in the 16+ public examinations. Pupils with a good CSE pass or a GCE
pass were then classified as 'able' at physics, the remainder as 'weak'.
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(iii) Some explanations simply would not fit any of the four models
listed, e.g.,
[L 2 is dimmer than Lj] 'because there is the same amount of current
going in but because there are three lamps on the bottom the
current has to be shared between three.'
(iv) Some subjects appeared to be using different models in different
questions.
Adherence to the 'clashing currents' model, figure 2 (a), decreased sharply
with increasing age and so seemed to be readily challenged by teaching. The
CHILDREN'S UNDERSTANDING OF ELECTRICITY 189
model, and this rise in year four may indicate that the sharing model has its
origins in confusion between current and the energy-related quantities of
power and voltage, both of which would be shared out equally between the
lamps in figure 1. Apart from one small second-year group these were the
first pupils to have experienced any serious treatment of voltage. Figure 2 (d)
shows that there was a steady increase with age in the percentage of subjects
who conserved current, though, when all uncertainties over classification are
taken into account, at least 27% of the sixth-year group definitely did not
conserve.
Additional insights into the nature of model / / were available from
the answers to question 2, given in figure 3. If the total resistance of a series
circuit is increased then the current flowing will decrease. This is the case
whatever the positions of the resistors in the circuit. This question
investigated children's understanding of these two rules. The question
appears rather cumbersome but some children hold rather odd ideas in which
the effect of increasing a resistor is not necessarily the inverse of the effect of
decreasing it, and it was important that these were distinguished from correct
responses.
The most interesting response types from the point of view of the
current model used were those in which only a variable resistor situated
'before' the lamp was regarded as having any effect upon it while a variable
resistor located 'after' the lamp was thought to have no effect. For example,
one sixth-form pupil said that the brightness of the lamp would stay the same
if i?! is decreased because
'i?! is after the lamp (considering electron flow) hence it will not hinder
the voltage';
but if R2 is increased the brightness of the lamp would decrease because
'R2 is before the lamp therefore it will hinder the energy reaching the
lamp (lower voltage) since electron flow is — to + .'
The variation with age in the incidence of such responses is shown by the
dotted line in figure 4. Here, as in all subsequent analyses, pupils who had
shown any indication whatever of reasoning in terms of a bidirectional
current model were omitted from the sample. In question 2 these would have
given 'correct' responses because Rl would always control the current
190 RESEARCH REPORTS
Figure 3. Question 2. More space •was provided for the written responses.
flowing in one direction around the circuit while R2 controlled the current
flowing in the opposite direction. Actually, for a variety of reasons, this
question did not detect all of those who reasoned in terms of 'before' and
'after', though it did identify the vast majority. The broken line in figure 4
gives the percentages of each year group who worked in this way at some
point in the test. Some of these additional cases had not answered the
question completely and amongst the remainder were some who had avoided
the error by switching the terms in which their explanations were couched
from 'current' to 'voltage' or 'power' at critical points in the question.
The model of current flow which is implied by this 'before and after'
error is one in which the current, as it progresses around the circuit, is
influenced by each element that it encounters in turn. If a change is made at a
particular point, then the current is influenced by the change when it reaches
that point, but not before. In reality, if any change is made within a circuit
electromagnetic waves travel from the seat of the change in both directions
CHILDREN'S UNDERSTANDING OF ELECTRICITY 191
100 r
x
80 -
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40
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20 -
1 i 1 1
Year
around the circuit. A new steady state is rapidly established in which the
voltages and currents in all parts of the circuit will have altered. The children
are assuming that information about the change is transmitted only in the
direction in which the current is flowing. This model is readily visualized,
which is not the case with the accepted view of a circuit as an interacting
system, and so has an appeal which is very readily appreciated. Other authors
have referred to it as a time-dependent model of current flow (Riley, Bee and
Mokwa 1981). Here it will be given the shorter and more descriptive title of
'the sequence model', since a sequence of events is believed to occur as
current flows around a circuit and spatial factors are at least as important as
temporal factors in this model.
Clearly this misconception, which represents a fundamental misunder-
standing of the behaviour of circuits, is of major importance because of its
high incidence, particularly in the middle years of secondary education, and
because of its persistence amongst those able pupils who have been studying
electricity for about four years and to an advanced level. In fact, the
opportunity arose recently to test a group of 18 graduates at the beginning of
their one-year course of training to become physics teachers. No less than
seven of these (39%), all of them physicists, still held the sequence model
despite intensive study of physics in the preceding three years.
The nature of the model itself, together with the steady increase in its
use over years one to three, suggests that it is developed as children are
introduced to more complex circuits during their formal instruction about
192 RESEARCH REPORTS
lamp has already divided from that to R before the change takes place. Again,
information about the change in R is only carried forward in the direction of
current flow, not backwards.
Investigation of the answers to this question was confined to students in
years four and six where there was no doubt that the relevant subject matter
had been covered. Subjects were classified according to whether or not they
held the sequence model using only their answers to question 2 to avoid
circularity. There is, within question 3, the complication that many subjects,
whatever the current model they hold, have recourse to the algorithm 'most
current takes the easier path', so that many may have explained the effect
upon L2 correctly despite poor understanding. The sixth-form sample, in
fact, relied heavily upon this algorithm. Nevertheless, as may be seen from
table 2, the results were substantially in agreement with expectations,
particularly in year four where 72% of the errors by those holding the
sequence model said that L2 would not change, compared with 22% for those
not holding that model. The explanations given by those who did not hold
the sequence model could all be taken to mean that no current would flow
through R anyway, e.g., 'because the current would take the easier route via
* Correct responses.
year six 100%. High proportions of the errors by those not holding the
sequence model (as revealed by question 2) were also of this nature however,
with 67% in year four and 89% in year six. Some of these were using the
sequence model here but had not given clear answers of that type in question
2. For the majority, though, most of the explanations given fell into one of the
following three classes:
(a) The total current in the circuit is unaltered by changing R. It is
merely shared differently between R and the lamp, e.g., 'the current
going into either L2 or R will rejoin again and will be the same as
before'.
(b) R controls L 2 . There is no corresponding variable resistor to control
the brightness of L t which thus stays the same, e.g., 'the resistor is in
parallel with L 2 not L1 so Ll will not be affected'.
(c) No current flows through R anyway, e.g., 'the current will bypass
the resistor'.
The modal response in year four appeared to be type (b) and in year six type
(a), though the differences were not statistically significant and all types were
found in both year groups. Overall 59% of those who had used the sequence
model in question 2 definitely used that model again here. The remaining
explanations could not be confidently distinguished from the types (a) to (c)
above.
Voltages in circuits
Much evidence has now been accumulated to the effect that children
experience great difficulties in discriminating between current and voltage
(e.g., Bullock 1979, Maichle 1981, Rhoneck 1981) and the results of all of
these studies are consistent with the conclusion reached by Cohen et al.
(1982) that current is the primary concept used by students while potential
CHILDREN S UNDERSTANDING OF ELECTRICITY 195
discussions about the interactions taking place around circuits should help to
overcome this problem also.
References
ANDERSSON, B. and KARRQVIST, C. 1979, Elektriska Kretsar (Electric Circuits) EKNA Report
No. 2, Göteborgs University, Mölndal, Sweden.
BULLOCK, R. R. 1979, The pupil's conception of voltage in the middle years of the secondary
school. Unpublished PHD thesis, University of Nottingham.
COHEN, R., EYLON, B. and Ganiel, U. 1982, Potential difference and current in simple electric
circuits: A study of students' concepts. American Journal of Physics, Vol. 51,
pp. 407-412.
DRIVER, R. and EASLEY, J. 1978, Pupils and paradigms: A review of the literature related to
concept development in adolescent science students. Studies in Science Education,
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FREDETTE, N. and LOCHHEAD, J. 1980, Students' conceptions of simple circuits. The Physics
Teacher, Vol. 18, pp. 194-198.
HÄRTEL, H. 1982, The electric circuit as a system: A new approach. European Journal of
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MAICHLE, U. 1981, Representations of knowledge in basic electricity and its use for problem
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tations of physics and chemistry knowledge', Ludwigsburg, FR Germany, September
1981.
OSBORNE, R. J. 1981, Children's ideas about electric current. New Zealand Science Teacher,
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OSBORNE, R. J., 1982 a, Investigating children's ideas about electric current using an interview-
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OSBORNE, R. J. 1982 b, Bridging the gap between teaching and learning. Paper presented to
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OSBORNE, R. J. 1983, Towards modifying children's ideas about electric current. Research in
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chemistry knowledge', Ludwigsburg, FR Germany, September 1981.
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