Chiu and Lin (2005)
This Chinese study investigated how analogies influence learning about electric circuits in 10-year-old students, reporting that careful use of them can produce profound learning and help students overcome some of their misconceptions.
Evidence-based suggestions
- Even the youngest students can benefit from multiple analogies and hands-on activities to develop and express their understanding of series and parallel circuits.
Learners’ ideas
- Students may think that current moves from one end of a battery only to power a lightbulb.
- Some students may think that current travels in different directions from the two terminals of a battery and meets in the components (a ‘clashing current model’).
- Many students picture the current as decreasing around a circuit.
- One student believed that individual components (e.g., bulbs) hold their own supply of ‘electricity’.
- Because of the students’ assumption that electricity is reduced while passing through an electrical wire, the analogies could not modify their presuppositions without more specific contexts causing conflict.
Further suggestions
- Curriculum developers may wish to include well-planned analogies for complicated concepts.
- Using more than one analogy can be beneficial as it can provide a different perspective on unfamiliar or new concepts.
- Teachers should acknowledge analogies' limitations to enhance students' scientific comprehension and prevent the overuse of multiple analogies.
Study Structure
Aims
- Investigate how different analogical materials influence students’ learning of electricity.
- Learn about how students’ mental models changed via the instructional processes.
- Examine the language young students used in acquiring the concept of electricity.
Evidence collection
Data was obtained through pre- and post-teaching questionnaires. The pre-test had six items covering circuit connection, two-bulb circuit design, serial connections, comparisons of bulbs, and students' initial thoughts on electricity before analogical instruction.
Students were then placed in one of four groups while studying simple circuits: a single analogy group, two similar analogies group, two complementary analogies group and a non-analogy group.
After completion of their studies, the students were tested again, using a different questionnaire. One-to-one interviews were also carried out with 32 students.
Comparisons of scores for the pre- and post-study questionnaires were made using SPSS.
Details of the sample
The sample consisted of 107 students, approximately 10 years old.