Abstract
Due to high abstractness of electric current and its “mixed” role between matter and energy, students’ understanding of this concept is always incomplete and incorrect. Spiro, Feltovich, Coulson and Anderson (1989) suggested that the use of multiple analogies might open an avenue for learning high complexity of science concepts. Thirty-two fourth graders were randomly assigned to a control group or three treatment groups (namely a group with one single analogy, a group with similar analogies, and a group with complementary analogies).
The results of this study are as follows:
First, it shows that multiple analogies are helpful to learning of concepts in electricity, in particular, the students in the complementary analogies group outperform than the students in other groups in learning energy concepts in electricity. The students in similar analogies group outperform the other analogies group, but not reaching at significant level.
Second, the researchers identify six mental models of series and simple circuits and five parallel ones.
Third, although three experimental groups provide concrete analogies for students to link with abstract concepts, students still hardly overcome their incorrect mental model about current decreasing after through a bulb.
Fourth, the main causes influencing students’ mental models, are (1) treating battery as a tank, which supplies consistent electrical current, (2) source-consumer model, (3) the view of repartition current, (4) sequential-inference model, (5) the effect of nodes, (6) the representations of circuit diagram, and (7) the concepts of closed circuit. These causes indicate that students tend to treat the electric world as a matter of concept, thus forming the presupposition of learning the concepts of electricity.
| Keywords: | multiple analogies; mental model; electricity |
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