Artículo / Article
Electric field lines: The implications of students' interpretation on their understanding of the concept of electric field and of the superposition principle
Fecha
2019Registro en:
10.1119/1.5100588
American Journal of Physics
87
8
660
667
Autor
Campos, Esmeralda
Zavala, Genaro
Zuza, Kristina
Guisasola, Jenaro
Institución
Resumen
A common way to represent an electric field in a course on electricity and magnetism is with the
electric field line diagram. Some literature claims that students have difficulties understanding this
representation and relating it to their understanding of the electric field concept. We conducted a
study at the introductory level that aims to understand the effect of students’ interpretation of
electric field line diagrams on their application of the superposition principle for the electric field.
The results give some evidence that an incorrect interpretation of the electric field line diagram
may hinder the understanding of the superposition principle. Students who understand a vector
representation of a field at a position tend to answer a superposition principle question better.
We question whether teaching the electric field line representation is productive at the
introductory level, and we discuss the need to have a representation that helps students reach a
better understanding of the electric field concept and of the superposition principle.