Identification of Prospective Physics Teacher’s Problem Solving Skills: A Study on Simple Electrical Circuits Topic

Abstract

Problem-solving is one of the essential and crucial skills for physical learning. This study describes the problem-solving skills of college students taking physics education programs and their incorrect answers on simple electrical circuits topic. We used four essay questions representing the series, parallel, combined series-parallel, and double-loop electrical circuits concepts to measure their problem-solving skills. Meanwhile, for describing their problem-solving skills, we used five categories of problem-solving processes, consisting of useful description (UD), physics approach (PA), specific application of physics (SAP), mathematical procedures (MP), and logical progression (LP). Further, to identify their mistakes, we examined the general mistakes in each problem-solving process. Our analysis results suggested that the college students taking the physics education program have relatively high problem-solving skills in the UD and PA categories. Still, they have low skills in SAP and MP categories, with poor ability in the LP category. Their mistakes were mostly observed in drawing complete electrical circuits and the circuits with missing and changing components (UD category), the correlation between each physic concept, law, and principle with the simple electrical circuits topic (PA category), confusion and inconsistency to correctly determine the + or – symbols for every source of voltage and difficulty in using the Kirchoff’s second law following the loop direction. Besides, the participants also frequently used incorrect V, and I value on the problem being reviewed (SAP category), did not re-evaluate the order and completeness of their answer, as well as the logical reasoning for the obtained V and I from their problem-solving process based on the scientific and physic concepts and characteristics (LP category).