Finnish Secondary Students’ Mental Models of Magnetism

Anna-Leena Kähkönen,Jouni Viiri,Anssi Lindell,Lynn Bryan,David Sederberg

doi:10.5617/nordina.5566

Anna-Leena Kähkönen, Jouni Viiri + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.5617/nordina.5566

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Abstract

We examined Finnish lower secondary students’ mental models of magnetism through their drawings, written explanations and interviews. Secondary students in Finland (N=12) engaged in six lessons designed specifically to target three key concepts in understanding magnetism: structure and organization (magnetic domains), magnetic fields and magnetic interactions. We describe how, with a finite number of key concepts introduced, students reflected upon and revised their mental models of magnetism and magnetic interactions towards more sophisticated and normative scientific views. We found two new categories of students’ models: the pole model and pole/field model. The critical moments in evolving the models happened during the investigations regarding understanding magnetic fields and magnetic internal structure. This article gives an example for teachers and researchers of how to follow students’ development of mental models in science.

Highlights

Magnets are familiar and fascinating objects within the everyday experience of most people, and, as any teacher who has taught a lesson in magnetism knows, learners of all ages can hardly resist the temptation of playing with them
In the context of instruction with a series of design-based (Wiggins & McTighe, 2006) lessons and assessments, we investigated how one class of secondary students in Finland constructed, critiqued and revised their mental models of magnetism and magnetic phenomena
We present the range of students’ mental models of magnetism that emerged from our analysis of data, prior to and following instruction

Summary

Introduction

Magnets are familiar and fascinating objects within the everyday experience of most people, and, as any teacher who has taught a lesson in magnetism knows, learners of all ages can hardly resist the temptation of playing with them. One reason that magnets may provoke such interest is that they provide a clear illustration of force acting on another object without physically touching it. Despite our fascination with magnets, people’s conceptions of magnetism and magnetic phenomena have not been investigated as extensively as other physical phenomena (Guisasola, Almudi, & Zubimendi, 2004; Hickey & Schibeci, 1999; Ravanis, Pantidos, & Vitoratos, 2010). Concepts of magnetism pose a challenge for learners, as these concepts require higher levels of cognition and mental imagery than more concrete and tangible concepts (Borges & Gilbert, 1998; Guisasola et al, 2004). The idea of an object causing an invisible force to be exerted on another without touching or of an object being attracted to either pole of a magnet are counterintuitive for children. Even after long and repeated instruction, students’ models of magnetism are likely to fall short of target sophistication (Borges & Gilbert, 1998; Constantinou, Raftopoulos, & Spanoudis, 2001)

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