Using potential to help students understand voltage: First steps in implementing effective instruction

In a previous publication, we reported on an ongoing investigation on student understanding of the concept of voltage. Using a worksheet, we had introduced students to the concept of electric potential to deepen their understanding of voltage. After instruction, we had found, that many students still had difficulties with both concepts. Most of their reasoning was inconsistent, which suggested that they were unable to link those concepts. [1] The purpose of this paper is to report our findings after a revision of the instructional material. We developed a new worksheet that focuses on the connection between potential and voltage, instead of the individual concepts. Potential is now mostly introduced as an algorithmic approach for determining voltages in a circuit. This approach allows us to confront students with their misconceptions regarding voltage. Using pre- and post-tests, we measured the effectiveness of this new approach. Compared to the results from last year, a significantly larger percentage of students in the post-test showed a functional understanding of voltages, as they were e.g. able to correctly identify the voltage at an open switch. A similar number of students was able to correctly rank the voltages in a given circuit. The overlap between both groups of students was significant. This overlap shows that our approach works in principle. However, as the percentage of students with a functional understanding of voltage is not as high as we had hoped for, the instructional material still has to be improved.
Subjects
Student understanding
Tutorial worksheet