Physics Students’ Conceptual Understanding of Electricity and Magnetism in Nine Years Basic Education in Rwanda

We investigate students’ misconceptions in electrostatics, direct current (DC) and magnetism which are important in electricity and magnetism. We developed and administered a multiple-choice questionnaire test to reveal students’ misconceptions related to charged bodies, lightning, electric fields, electric potential, forces, DC resistive electric circuits and magnets. This test aimed at obtaining quantitative information about misconceptions and was administered to 380 senior two students from Nine Year Basic Education (9YBE) Schools. The selected students have some experience with the new Rwandan secondary physics Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) that is currently under implementation. We find that senior two students have several common misconceptions related to these concepts. The data indicate that although students have some backgrounds on the subject matter, they still seem to believe that if the two charges are separated by a distance, a large-charged object exerts a greater force of attraction or repulsion on the small one. Considerable number of participated students held the misconception of considering current consumption in the resistor/bulb or the electrical devices in the circuits. They also believed that the battery was a continuous current source. The findings also revealed that students held a misconception that a bar magnet when broken into pieces, it is demagnetized. Moreover, a considerable number of participants hold the misconception that all metals are attracted by a magnet. Our study also revealed some of the statistically significant differences in terms of either gender or location of schools for some items.

2. Creation revealed

‘Creation revealed’ examines key observations on planetary systems. Astronomers at first could probe the Universe only through the medium of visible light. In the early 1600s, the invention of the telescope allowed the Universe to be observed in much greater detail. With the discovery of ‘heat rays’, the seeds of infrared astronomy were planted. Meanwhile, throughout the course of the nineteenth century, one of the grandest unifications in physics was accomplished. It was discovered that the forces of electricity and magnetism were in fact different aspects of the same phenomenon: electromagnetism. Other important topics include blackbody radiation; infrared observations of young stellar objects; and the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Enhancing scientific argumentation skill through partnership comprehensive literacy

This study focuses on the use of Partnership Comprehensive Literacy (PCL) as a reading strategy to support reading in science and to explore the level of students’ Scientific argument. Partnership Comprehensive Literacy consist of 4 components that address the topic of the reading activity: the statements of the content, what I think, what the texts say, and evidence of the text. This study uses a mix method to identify and improve students’ scientific argumentation skills. The instrument used is a set of questions about electricity and magnetism. In addition, the argument level rubric instrument that contains argument components is used to analyse the level of students’ scientific arguments. The participants of this study were 40 college students consisting of 25 females and 15 males in the department of physics education taking a course in the fundamental of physics. The findings revealed that the students’ level argument was dominated by the use of Claim-Reasoning-Evidence (CRE). In addition, students evaluated that the use of PCL in reading activity as being challenging but an interesting process because they have to find the evidence in the texts to support their statements of what I think.

An allgravity as a grand unification of forces

Each type of Coulomb (Newton) charge corresponds to a kind of Coulomb (Newton) mass. Such a mass-charge duality principle explains the availability of the united rest mass and charge in a neutrino equal to all its mass and charge consisting of the electric, weak, and strong components and the range of other innate components. A neutrino itself, similarly to all other quantum matter with Coulomb (Newton) mass and charge, testifies hereby in favor of a kind of mononeutrino with magnetocoulomb (magnetonewton) rest mass and charge equal to all its mass and charge including the magnetoelectric, magnetoweak, and magnetostrong parts and the range of other innate parts. We discuss a theory in which symmetry between electricity and magnetism comes forward at the level of a grand unification mathematical logic as the defined symmetry between gravity and magnetogravity within the same allgravity responsible for all that in a curved space-time. This allgravity relates a graviton and a monograviton as a consequence of force unification forming a single allgraviton. Thereby, it establishes a set of forces and the role of mass and charge in their formation and thus directly reveals the most diverse properties of a curved space that have remained hitherto latent.