Magnetic Field Mental Representations of 15-16 Year Old Students

Abstract

The study of students’ mental representations of Natural Sciences concepts and phenomena constitutes a central part of Physics Education research, as they play a decisive role in teaching. In the study presented here, we investigate 112 15-16 years old students’ mental representations of the magnetic field, after they were taught about it in school. The empirical data was gathered through an interview using 3 tasks which involved the evaluation of actual or hypothetical situations. The research data included mental representations that cause difficulty in the comprehension of the properties of the magnetic field.