Abstract
Qualitative research conducted with 237 pupils from Canada, France, and Morocco, between 10 and 12 years of age, on the setting and functioning of simple electric circuits, demonstrates that similar explanatory systems of the students. For this, we had given them a paper and pencil questionnaire of a sixty minutes duration. The first question was related to power a light bulb using wires and battery. The second issue was intended to determine whether pupils are conscious of the danger associated with a polarity battery. The third is related to the flow of electric current between the + and ‐ terminals of a battery in an electric circuit. The last question requires an understanding of the law of conservation of the charge in a circuit constituted by a battery and a bulb. This research provides an answer to the question of ethnocentricity and universality of students’ conceptions from different cultures and linguistic communities. In this research, the thesis of the universality was establish from the students’ responses to a questionnaire.
Highlights
There is consensus today among researchers in the didactics of sciences concerning the important role of the ideas that pupils have about phenomena that underlie scientific concepts taught in school programs
The closed circuit notion is not understood by these pupils since for the majority of them, it is sufficient that the poles (+) and (‐) of a same battery or of two batteries be connected, without paying attention to the terminals of the bulb, the contact and the base
In the context of the internationalization of knowledge, the results of this research show the relevance of developing new research of comparative nature on the spontaneous conceptions of the children about the functioning of a simple electric circuit in many countries and, especially, in regions where modern technology is not predominant
Summary
There is consensus today among researchers in the didactics of sciences concerning the important role of the ideas that pupils have about phenomena that underlie scientific concepts taught in school programs. The present qualitative research has attempted to identify the spontaneous conceptions of pupils from three countries about the necessity of a closed electric circuit for the flow of energy in the wires and its conservation.
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