Magnetic Field Mental Representations of 15-16 Year Old Students

The study of studentsâ€™ mental representations of Natural Sciences concepts and phenomena constitutes a central part of Physics Education research, as they play a decisive role in teaching. In the study presented here, we investigate 112 15-16 years old studentsâ€™ mental representations of the magnetic field, after they were taught about it in school. The empirical data was gathered through an interview using 3 tasks which involved the evaluation of actual or hypothetical situations. The research data included mental representations that cause difficulty in the comprehension of the properties of the magnetic field.

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Teaching Optics: Light Sources and Shadows

JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN PHYSICS ◽

10.24297/jap.v2i2.2100 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 134-138

Author(s):

Charilaos Voutsinos

Keyword(s):

Education Research ◽

Physics Education ◽

Empirical Data ◽

Mental Representations ◽

Critical Role ◽

Ninth Grade ◽

Research Data ◽

Physics Education Research ◽

Light Sources ◽

Ninth Grade Students

The study of students representations of physics concepts and phenomena constitutes a central part of Physics Education research, as they play a critical role in teaching. In the study presented here, we investigate 120 ninth grade students mental representations of the formation of shadows. The empirical data was gathered through an interview using four tasks which involved the evaluation of hypothetical situations. The research data included representations that cause difficulty in the comprehension of the position of a light source in relevance to the shadow.

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Magnetic Field of a Linear Quadrupole Using the Magnetic Sensors Inside the Smartphones

10.20944/preprints201801.0257.v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Isabel Escobar ◽

Raquel Ramirez-Vazquez ◽

Jesus Gonzalez-Rubio ◽

Augusto Belendez ◽

Enrique Arribas

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Field ◽

Physics Education ◽

Magnetic Sensors ◽

Physics Education Research ◽

Natural Focus ◽

Experimental Procedure ◽

Physics Courses ◽

Improving Student Learning ◽

Hall Sensors ◽

The Magnetic Field

We believe that a natural focus of the Physics Education Research community is on understanding and improving student learning in our physics courses. For this purpose, we are introducing smartphones in the physics laboratory. Current smartphones measure each component of the magnetic field, bearing in mind that any current perpendicular to a magnetic field produces a small potential difference, transversal to the said current, being this voltage easily measurable by Hall sensors. In this work, we have considered the magnetic field created by a linear quadrupole and we have studied its dependence on distance. Using an experimental procedure that is simple we have measured the magnetic field using the Hall sensor that most smartphones have, together with the corresponding app. The purpose of this work is to show that the laboratory is a powerful tool that increases significant learning under three conditions: 1) the practice must not be too sophisticated; 2) students must handle objects in the lab; and 3) the practice must be scientifically accurate, including the adjustments by minimum squares, and the following and necessary error calculation.

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