Abstract

PERIAGO OLIVER, María Cristina  and  BOHIGAS JANOHER, Xavier. The Prevalence of Prior Knowledge about Electric Potential, Current Intensity and Ohm's Law in Second-Year Students of Engineering. REDIE [online]. 2005, vol.7, n.2, pp.1-23. ISSN 1607-4041.

The aim of this research was to evaluate and analyse second-year industrial engineering and chemical engineering students' prior knowledge of conceptual aspects of circuit theory. Specifically, we focused on the basic concepts of electric potential and current intensity and on the fundamental relationship between them as expressed by Ohm's Law. In order to find out what the students' alternative conceptions were, we gave them a questionnaire containing nine questions dealing with the most basic concepts of circuit theory. It should be emphasized that there is little information available about the alternative conceptions of the population type investigated in this research (university students).

Keywords : Alternative conceptions; circuit theory; engineering students.