Den elektriska kretsen – En explorativ studie av svenska elevers uppfattningar angående den elektriska kretsen

This study has developed as a part of an ongoing co-operation between Taiwan, Finland and Sweden with the purpose of examining and comparing the conceptions of students of different ages concerning electric circuits. The purpose of this explorative study is to find out what conceptions Swedish students of different ages have concerning the electric circuit. The study has been accomplished by means of semi-structured interviews. Altogether nine students in the age of eleven, fifteen, seventeen and eighteen have been interviewed. The interviews have been analyzed partly from Kärrqvist’s (1985) models that students have shown regarding electric circuits. The result inter alia demonstrates that three models are to be found among the respondents corresponding to Kärrqvist’s (1985) ideas. In addition, we discovered a new model, which does not correspond to Kärrqvist’s (1985) models or any other known model in the literature. The new model has been named “kopplingsberoende modell” (connection-dependent model). Furthermore we revealed that all the respondents had the idea of a closed circuit where they often used the word wire to describe end explain the electric circuit.