Using CSEM To Study The Concept Of Electromagnetic Error In College Students

In todays' new curriculum reform, people attach great importance to passing on basic knowledge and skills. Although the basic physics concept is the core of the study of physics, when students learn it, they are not with empty head. They have accumulated a large amount of personal experience which may be contrary to current scientific theories called misconception. Misconception has characteristics of universality, spontaneity, stubborn, invisibility, representation, similarity and so on, that can hinder the comprehen-sion and application of knowledge. In physics, many misconceptions about mechanics have been researched, but few of electromagnetism so far. Electromagnetism as an important module in physics, it is very important to research on it.This paper mainly contains five aspects:The first, reorganise some electromagnetic misconceptions that have been discovered by investigator through literature reading.The second, translate the Concept Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) which is widely used abroad and its reliability and validity are proved to be relatively high. Then, use the CSEM to do research on students of the 2014 class major in physics in Shaan Xi Normal University before and after the course of electromagnetism learning.The third, investigate the students with the questionnaire about the situation of students on electromagnetic learning compiled by the writer.The fourth, analyse the result of the investigation:The first,which misconceptions about electromagnetism do students have? The second, are there any differences in the learning of electromagnetic concepts among different classes? The third, does gender have an influence on the learning of the concepts of electromagnetism? The fourth, know the improved extent of students' comprehension of electromagnetic concepts after the course of electromagnetism learning. The fifth, know students' opinions on electromagnetism and the way they like to learn the concept of electromagnetism and so on.The fifth, discuss the reasons that why students have misconceptions and provide some strategies on concept teaching.The conclusions of this paper are as follows:The first, some misconceptions that students have on conductor and insulator, Coulomb's law, the superposition of force and field, work and electric potential, magnetic force and Faraday's law and so on.The second, the difference among the four classes in the pre-and post-test of CSEM isn't significant.The third, in the pre-test of CSEM, the difference between boys and girls isn't significant, but in the post test, the boys scores are much higher and more stable than girls.The fourth, after the study of the course of "electromagnetism" the students' comprehension of electrostatic shielding and Lorenz's force is greatly improved, but some questions'correct rate decreased in the post-test and the trend of the correct rate in pre-and post-test is very similar, which shows that the misconceptions are very difficult to correct.The fifth, analyse the questionnaire about the situation of students on electromagnetic learning compiled by the writer. The results show that most students think it is difficult to learn electromagnetism and it is very important to comprehend concepts by doing exercise, especially choice questions and essay questions. Students expect to learn the abstract concept of electromagnetism by experiment and are willing to do simulation experiments in their spare time, but they do less in fact. In terms of concept map of electromagnetism, they know little.The sixth, the reasons that why students have misconceptions are as follows:The first, misunderstand the physical quantities expressed in mathematical methods. The second, teachers emphasize on doing exercise but neglect on concept teaching.. The third, the inappropriate analogy between electric field and magnetic field. The fourth, the abstraction of electromagnetism itself. The fifth, some common situations have been neglected in the textbooks and exercise books. The sixth, the influence of the problems left over from mechanics on the learning of the electromagnetic concepts.The seventh, strategies about misconceptions teaching are as follows:The first, teachers should be aware of the misconceptions that students have. The second, trigger cognitive conflict during the teaching process. The third, to cultivate the ability of analogy. The fourth, misconceptions that students have should be showed in the guiding book for teachers and so on.