2002/03/01 by Michael Wittmann, Michael C. Wittmann, Richard N. Steinberg +1 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Experimental Learning in Engineering #Science Education and Pedagogy #Various Chemistry Research Topics #physics.ed-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1119/1.1447542
published as American Journal of Physics 70:3, 218-226 (2002) · 12 pages, 9 figures, 36 references and notes
openalex publication_date 2002/03/01 · arxiv created 2002/07/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Students are taught several models of conductivity, both at the introductory and the advanced level. From early macroscopic models of current flow in circuits, through the discussion of microscopic particle descriptions of electrons flowing in an atomic lattice, to the development of microscopic nonlocalized band diagram descriptions in advanced physics courses, they need to be able to distinguish between commonly used, though sometimes contradictory, physical models. In investigations of student reasoning about models of conduction, we find that students often are unable to account for the existence of free electrons in a conductor and create models that lead to incorrect predictions and responses contradictory to expert descriptions of the physics. We have used these findings as a guide to creating curriculum materials that we show can be effective helping students to apply the different conduction models more effectively.