Abstract
There are many studies on students' understanding of DC circuits in the steady state, but few studies have been made about students' ideas on transient states of movement of charges in a conductor. The traditional Electricity curriculum often involves situations of transient motion of charges such as the process of charging a body (conductor or dielectric), closing or opening the switch in a DC circuit or, circuits charging and discharging capacitors. In this research, we present two questions that have been used to investigate the representations of students about the movement of charges of transients in direct current, which focus on the transition between electrostatics and electrodynamics in first year university undergraduate study. The results obtained show that a significant percentage of students cannot correctly interpret simple transitory state current phenomena. Their explanations fall into two general categories. Firstly, one based on potential difference and secondly, one that excludes current flow in processes of transitory state. Some consequences for teaching are discussed.
Highlights
In many introductory physics courses on electricity, the core of the theory of electric circuits is a set of simple DC circuit laws, which relate algebraically voltages, currents and resistance
As our current study differs from others in that we focus on students’ understanding of the physical justification of the explanatory model for the DC circuits, in table 2 we show the correct or incorrect answer, and different students’ categories of explanations
When drawing conclusions it is necessary to bear in mind that this study is the initial part of a project on students’ explanatory model of DC circuits in both transitory and steady state
Summary
In many introductory physics courses on electricity, the core of the theory of electric circuits is a set of simple DC circuit laws, which relate algebraically voltages, currents and resistance. These laws are included because they are usually related to Drude’s classical theory of electric conduction. In a DC circuit with resistors, explanations to predict relationships between variables I, V and R refer, in general, only to the steady state, and express invariance with respect to certain transformations These relationships do not describe how circuits behaves during transient states, and provide little understanding of the underlying dynamic processes that lead to the equilibrium state of a system [2].
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