Learning Electrical Circuits in Upper Secondary Schools: The Results of Different Educational Approaches

Abstract

We report on teaching resistive electric circuits through Tutorials for Introductory Physics to 11th grade students at Argentina high schools. The experiment was carried out at two different schools: one public, state-run, mixed-gender institution and a confessional school only for women. The Determining and Interpreting Resistive Electric Circuits Concepts Tests (DIRECT), which contain a rather complete taxonomy of misconceptions and learning difficulties with regards to electric circuits, were used to measure conceptual learning. Our results show a very significant improvement in conceptual learning when Tutorials are used, as compared to the traditional instruction used in the control population, for students from different socio-economic backgrounds, of different gender and types of schools. We advocate that the complementary use of active learning teaching strategies, like Tutorials, and measuring instruments like DIRECT, provides the conditions for significant improvements in the teaching of physics in almost any educational system.