Duday, Denise
[Author]
;
Kautz, Christian H.
[Degree supervisor];
Kuhl, Matthias
[Degree supervisor]Technische Universität Hamburg,
Technische Universität Hamburg Abteilung für Fachdidaktik der Ingenieurwissenschaften
Investigation of student thinking about the voltage across open switches
University thesis:
Masterarbeit, Technische Universität Hamburg, 2021
Footnote:
Sonstige Körperschaft: Technische Universität Hamburg, Abteilung für Fachdidaktik der Ingenieurwissenschaften
Description:
Student understanding in the field of electrical engineering has been researched for some time. Especially the research of student ideas regarding DC circuits has been given special focus in previous studies. It has been observed that the majority of the students assume the voltage across an open switch to be zero. Further, the studies proposed several student misconceptions that caused this incorrect assumption. In this work, two sets of student interviews were conducted and analyzed. The interviewed students were enrolled in an undergraduate course in electrical engineering at Hamburg University of Technology. In the first set of interviews, the proposed misconceptions were confirmed. Further, additional misconceptions were observed. The observed misconceptions can be categorized into misconceptions regarding the open switch and misconceptions regarding the general understanding of voltage. In total, eight different misconceptions have been observed. In this work, all misconceptions are identified and characterized with the help of student quotes. The second set of interviews was used to investigate how the students' understanding changed throughout the continued studies in electrical engineering over the course of the lecture. Moreover, based on the observed student misconceptions, a questionnaire was developed that can be used to detect misconceptions among a larger group of students.