Abstract:
Students' misconceptions of electric circuits are common and are well documented in the literature. Misconceptions are students' conceptions that are against the accepted...Show MoreMetadata
Abstract:
Students' misconceptions of electric circuits are common and are well documented in the literature. Misconceptions are students' conceptions that are against the accepted scientifically correct explanations, however, held tenaciously. Research has shown that misconceptions act as barriers to learning science and engineering concepts. In order to remediate students' misconceptions, there is a need for their accurate detection and measurement. While there have been concept inventories developed to measure students' misconceptions in electric circuits, most of them lack the ability to discriminate between students who lack prior knowledge and those who have ingrained misconceptions. Hence, the need for the development of the Electric Circuits Concept Diagnostic (ECCD). In this study, 30 items designed to test students' conceptual understanding of basic electric circuit concepts (such as Voltmeter and Ammeter, Nodes and Loops, Sequential Reasoning, Voltage and Potential Difference etc.) were administered to participants via Qualtrics Survey Software. The test has three tiers: multiple-choice content tier (O), open-ended reason tier (C), and multiple-choice confidence level tier(H). Data from 35 engineering undergraduate students who took part in the pilot test were analyzed, and the initial analysis and results of the data generated during the summer of 2022 show students' clusters based on their responses to the items on ECCD. This work-in-progress reports these results and outlines the next phase of the project.
Published in: 2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
Date of Conference: 18-21 October 2023
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 05 January 2024
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