Improving Students' Conceptual Understanding of Conductors and Insulators

TL;DR

This study investigates the misconceptions about conductors and insulators among students at various levels and introduces tutorials to improve their understanding, demonstrating their effectiveness through comparative assessments.

Contribution

The paper develops and evaluates tutorials aimed at enhancing conceptual understanding of conductors and insulators in physics education.

Findings

Graduate students also struggle with these concepts

Tutorials significantly improve student understanding

Tutorials outperform traditional instruction in tests and interviews

Abstract

We examine the difficulties that introductory physics students, undergraduate physics majors, and physics graduate students have with concepts related to conductors and insulators covered in introductory physics by giving written tests and interviewing a subset of students. We find that even graduate students have serious difficulties with these concepts. We develop tutorials related to these topics and evaluate their effectiveness by comparing the performance on written pre-/post-tests and interviews of students who received traditional instruction vs. those who learned using tutorials.