Preschool children's conceptions about the electric current and the functioning of electric appliances

Abstract

SUMMARY In this work we describe a research project with 38 preschool children, aged 5.5 to 6.5, aiming at the detection and study of children's ideas and conceptions about the functioning of common electric appliances, and about the electric current and its properties. The investigation was realised in preschool premises, with semi-structured personal interviews and with the help of 15–19 cards, each showing an electric appliance. The analysis of the answers showed that children of this age have no difficulty in recognising and naming the electric appliances they are familiar with. As regards to the electric current, they hold a variety of preconceptions. They represent electric current in quite a static way, they think that electricity is included into electric appliances, wires, plugs/wall sockets or the power grid's pylons. They confound electric current and water flow, they believe that electricity outdoors (‘external’) is completely different from electricity indoors (‘internal’), and they have not formed any idea for the provenance, flow or movement of electric current. In contrast, they know quite well the hazards provoked by electricity, in the case that one puts his/her fingers into sockets. Those data will be taken into account in order to conceive and realise a proper didactical intervention in preschool education, aiming at helping children construct certain valid preconceptions about electric current, which could subsequently evolute to conceptions valid from a scientific point of view.