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BUILDING VERTICAL PATHS IN EXPLORING MAGNETIC
PHENOMENA DEVELOPING FORMAL THINKING
Marisa Michelini, Lorenzo Santi, Alberto Stefanel and Stefano Vercellati
University of Udine, Physics Education Research Unit, DCFA, Udine, Italy
Abstract: The situated nature of the scientific learning requires studies on the role of phenomena
exploration in order to activate conceptual change for the scientific and formal thinking (Guile &
Young 2003; Vosniadou, 2008; Michelini, 2005, 2010). Design Based Research and Empirical
Research are integrated in the framework of Model of Educational Reconstruction (Duit 2006) to
individuate a vertical path facing the wide spectra of difficulties evidenced by literature on
electromagnetism at different age students (Galili 1995; Borges 1999; Maloney 2001, Guisasola
2003). Rather than general results or catalogues of difficulties, we look at the obstacles that must be
overcome to reach a scientific level of understanding. Milestones of a vertical path on
electromagnetism and two examples of research based intervention modules on magnetic field
properties in primary and secondary school are presented.
Keywords: learning path, vertical perspective, electromagnetism
INTRODUCTION
In reading phenomena, there are strategic angles, critical details and common sense reasoning,
which remain often implicit, co-existing and not corresponding to the physics interpretation. The
development of formal thinking requires the identification of phenomenological aspects and their
placement in an explanatory schema. Three main elements are involved in this process: analysis and
comparison of the simple phenomenological aspects; the reflection on the phenomena and the
identification of conceptual references and relevant argumentations; identification of entities that
represent the conceptual framework needed to reach scientific interpretations which validity is
recognizable in several different phenomenological contexts. (Viennot, 1996, 2003; McDermott,
1993, 2006; Michelini 2010)
Difficulties of different age students on the identification and interpretation of electro-magnetic
phenomena (e-m) emerge from literature, in particular on identification magnetic poles and
interaction dependence on distance (Bar et al., 1997; Maloney et al., 2001), magnetic field
characteristics and representation (Galili, 1995; Borges & Gilbert 1999; Maloney et al. 2001,
Guisasola et al., 2003), electromagnetic phenomena interpretation (Bagno & Eylon, 1997; Maloney
et al., 2001). Action at a distance way of thinking inhibits the construction of field concept (Galili
1995; Bagno & Eylon, 1997). In spite of the large diffusion of magnetic toys, pupils haven’t
familiarity with magnetic phenomena (Bagno & Eylon, 1997, Fedele et al., 2005, Challapalli et al.,
2014). The learning processes’ identification in phenomena interpretation on specific topics
emerges as pre-requisite for learning knots overcoming in designing new approaches in
Teaching/Learning (T/L) physics (Michelini, 2010; Michelini & Vercellati, 2011). Reference
situations, materials and methods are never neutral (vonAufschnaiter & vonAufschnaiter, 2003), but
dynamic evolution of internal logic of reasoning (Gilbert et al., 1998), following problematic
stimulus, is relevant in determining the learning process. Therefore, we integrate Empirical
Research and Design Based Research for vertical path proposals experimented by means of
different interventions in classes (Costas, 2010; Suri & Clarke, 2009; Michelini, 2010).
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We studied strategies to bridge common sense ideas with the scientific one in specific intervention
modules. Vertical paths are identified, as learning corridor (diSessa, 2004; Michelini, 2010; Psillos
et al., 2010) for individual learning trajectories and steps by steps concept appropriation modalities
(Fedele et al., 2005, Bradamante, et al. 2006, Vercellati & Michelini, 2012).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH APPROACH
Research is organized in the framework of the Model of Educational Reconstruction (Duit 2006),
with some modifications according with the following phases iterated:
A. Clarification of conceptual nuclei and knots in e-m,
B. Empirical Research on T/L intervention modules, monitoring learning processes (Michelini
2003, 2010);
C. Design Based Research for developing path proposals and related materials.
During phase B pre-post tests are integrated with monitoring tools, as semi-structured and
Rogersians’ interviews and stimuli cards (Lumbelli, 1997; Fernandez-Ballesteros, 2003;
Bradamante & Michelini, 2006).
Conceptual Laboratories for Operative Exploration (CLOE) are research environments where pupils
are involved in group hand-on and minds-on explorations of context to develop interpretative way
of thinking being involved in conceptual path and interpretative challenges; reasoning and
spontaneous models. The conceptual patterns of pupils are monitored by means of inquiry cards and
audio-video recording. (Fedele et al., 2005; Challapalli et al., 2014). Research seeks to shed light
upon spontaneous ways of looking at phenomena and on common ways of reasoning, taking these
into account as an anchor for building scientific reasoning in vertical coherent educational paths.
TWO SPECIFIC RESEARCH CONTEXTS
The first context is an explorative path with children, to investigate how children develop and use
interpretative ideas in e-m phenomena and pass from local to global perspective (Michelini &
Vercellati, 2011; Vercellati & Michelini, 2012) audio/video recording of a sequence of activities is
carried out with 19 classes for a total of 201 primary, 114 lower secondary school pupils, and 19
kindergarten pupils.
Figure 1. Materials available to explore the parameters involved and the conditions for the e-m
induction.
The CLOE activity was structured in 4 phases: 1) stimuli situations proposed to produce resonance
between pupils’ naïve ideas and interpretative discussions (Appendix 1); 2) small groups
exploration of electromagnetic induction (Fig.1); 3) general discussion to build a common
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interpretation; 4) individual task to explain the functioning of artifacts based on e-m induction
(Figure 2).
Figure 2. Artifact to be explained
In the second study here considered, a research based 12 hours experimentation of the designed
vertical T/L path on electromagnetism was carried out in three different secondary schools with a
total of 54 students of 18 years old (Michelini & Vercellati, 2012). The learning process was
monitored step by step by means of in-out tests and stimuli worksheets based on in PEC strategy in
the inquiry based (McDermott, 2007) approach path to build the idea of magnetic flux.
EXPLORATIVE PATH WITH PUPILS
Focusing on electromagnetic induction part of the research, the activity can be divided into two
phases: 1) explorative phase of phenomena; 2) a structured analysis of an artifact.
The main research questions investigated were: RQa1) how operative explorations help pupils to
identify and produce electromagnetic induction; RQa2) how the exploration and the comparison
between phenomena is useful to help pupils in the interpretation of artifact; RQa3) how exploratory
elements are reused by pupils in the interpretation of artifacts.
To promote cooperative learning, during the inquired based learning path, pupils worked in groups
of five, but each pupil had his/her own personal worksheet for comments and to draw conclusions
reflecting on the explored phenomenology, sharing and defending their ideas and challenge each
other with opposing perspectives or argumentations.
Some situations (S) of Appendix 1 path and questions emerge as crucial and the following in
particular.
S8) The compasses behavior far away from other objects: discuss compass needle direction rotating
the cardboard or directly the compass box at an arbitrary angle and use more than one compass;
S11) study of the compasses behavior near a magnet: analysis of needle direction in relationship
with compass position and sketch of the needle orientation lines;
S11bis) free exploration in the classroom with the set of compasses: Are magnets the only objects
able to change the orientation of the needles? Which are the common element(s) in the objects that
can orientate the needles?;
S17) Coil and compass interaction when coil is or is not connected with the generator and
exploration of the condition for producing electromagnetic induction.
During this activities from data emerge that the percentage of pupils who focus their attention on
the needle of the compass increase from 7% to 80% in S8 and to 96% in S11 The compass as
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explorer in studying magnetic properties of space assumes a central role for pupils (98%) and it
becomes an interpretative tool with magnetic field lines in S11-S11bis (87%). The foundation of the
idea of magnetic field emerges in this context.
The audio-video recording of the general discussions done during the explorative phase are
represented in Figure 3. The type of intervention done by the researchers and the pupils are
categorized in different colors: red for the key questions, yellow for the additional questions
designed to promote further discussion, blue for the interventions that are related to experimental
situations, green for answers that are based on previous knowledge without referred to a particular
experimental situations, orange for the discussions and grey for the waiting time that the researcher
allowed before additional answers. The way in which pupils are inserted in this schema reflects the
way in which the discussion evolves: in almost all activities performed, especially with the younger
pupils there is an emerging group of some pupils (4 or 5 at least) that tend to guide the discussion
and tend to be more active in the learning process than others. For example we notice that for the 10
year old class, 4 pupils (over 18) did almost one third of the interventions and the remaining part is
equally divided between group (coral replies, in which pupils answered all together) answers and
answer given by pupils that did not do more than two or three interventions.
The analysis of the schema reported in Figure 3 put in evidence how, during the development of the
laboratory, the pupils’ answers that are based on previous knowledge without referred to a
particular experimental situations of the 10 year old pupils decreased (color green), while increasing
the references to experimental situations (blue) for argumentation (orange). This trend becomes less
marked in the 13-year old pupils where the green interventions occur through the learning path but
especially emerge in the phase of experimental exploration of electromagnetic induction.
Phenomena exploration cannot be overcome in order to reach a personal interpretative analysis by
students, but it seems that after primary school the focus is more superficial and less fertile the
exploratory work.
Figure 3. Representation of the kind of interventions in a typical discussion evolution during the
path exploration of a single group of 10 years old pupils and 13 years old pupils, where the colors
characterize the different type of interventions.
Regarding analysis of the artefact (of Figure 2), after S18 and exploration described in Figure 1, the
structural elements almost disappear in the pupils’ descriptions after they had the possibility to
experiment with the artifact: even if 44% of the pupils gave a spontaneous functional description,
that percentage increase to 78% after they had the possibility to experiment with the artifact and
consequently the percentage of pupils that gave a structural description decrease from 55% to 6%,
focusing on the induction process and characteristics.
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Data have shown that RQa1) an operative approach helps pupils to focus their attention on the
physics relevant elements in phenomena; RQa2) the operative approach helps pupils bridge the
space between a structural and a functional description of the apparatus; RQa3) comparison and
analogies between artifacts elements and objects explored during the learning path allow pupils to
re-use their previous discoveries into the interpretation of the artifact.
Explorations made by children constitute a wealth of experiences on which they demonstrate to be
able to plan organic explorations of a new phenomenon as the electromagnetic induction. The
results also highlight that this experience allows pupils to acquire an interpretive strategy for the
electromagnetic induction that accounts for this phenomena in terms of the variables involved and
their correlation on the operational level. In addition, even if the pupils do not have the concept of
magnetic field and flux and they use it in a non-quantitative way, they are able to identify the main
conceptual cores of it with the main phenomenological characteristics, already at this age level.
RESEARCH BASED SECONDARY SCHOOL INTERVENTION
EXPERIMENT
In the framework of a co-planning work to promote the innovation of the teaching strategies into the
Italian high school (IDIFO projects), the research based intervention experiment of the designed
vertical path was carried out by a researcher in three high school classrooms with the school
teachers, according with the standard time table of the involved classes in the school buildings,
using a total amount of 12 hours (Michelini & Vercellati, 2012).
All the classes involved are grade 13th (students are mainly 18 years old) and are selected from
different types of schools to investigate also the portability of the learning path: classical lyceum,
linguistic lyceum and scientific technological lyceum. The activities presented in Appendix 1 were
the reference situations for the phenomenological investigations in the framework of a gradual
growth of the level of formalization. In particular focusing on the following research questions:
RQb1) Which are the conceptual referents that students used in phenomena exploration?; RQb2)
How students use the formal entities and construct the conceptual meaning?; RQb3) How the
experimental exploration allows students to understand the formal nature of the magnetic field?.
At the beginning, students naïvely provide a first representation of the magnetic properties of the
space at one point as a pictorial or a stylized representation of the compass needle representing or
not the orientation of the needle. The limits of the versor representation were addressed and in
particular is highlighted how this first formal representation is not able to describe the superposition
of fields. It emerges in this way the need of introducing a new way to represents also the intensity of
this property. In the same way, field line representation is analyzed observing how a simple field
lines representation was not able to provide quantitative information as concern the intensity of the
magnetic field at one point. Even if students try to correlate the distance (57%) or the density (29%)
of the line with the intensity of the field it is not true. But, following this shared naïve prevision,
students validated it by measuring the value of the flux of the magnetic field between two field lines
looking for a correlation law between the intensity of the magnetic field and the height of the stripes
bounded by the two lines. The inverse proportionality between the value of the intensity of the
magnetic field (B) and the section of the tube (S) provides the opportunity to look for a constant
value for each tube. The renormalization of the line pattern allow quantitative forecast on the
structure of the field representation, producing the flux concept and a quantitative correlation with
the number of tubes crossing a surface to the flux of the magnetic field through a surface or a
circuit. The experimental exploration of electromagnetic induction was performed by students after
the analysis of different sources of magnetic field and the Lorentz force using this conceptual tool.
Data on learning processes were obtained from the students’ writings on the inquired based personal
worksheets proposed and from the audio recording of the argumentative discussions. For each
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question, the students’ answers are categorized and grouped in accordance with the main categories
highlighted in literature and in new categories that emerged from the grouping of the data in the
framework of a phenomenographic analysis.
By means of this experimentation is shown how an experimental exploration of the properties of a
physical entity done in a prospective of gradual construction of the formal properties and allow
students to construct the meaning of abstract entities giving physical meaning of their
representation. In this way, the formal entity becomes a conceptual referent having a meaningful
graphical representation that allows students to do prevision and provide interpretations of the
explored phenomena (71%). In particular, RQb1) the magnetic field became the main conceptual
referent in situations in which the source of the magnetic properties is at rest (74%), while some
difficult persist when the sources are in motion (25%). The role of experimental exploration for the
investigation of the induction phenomena as they were proposed have a double value. In the
qualitative explorations, students found and construct an explanatory model based on the abstract
entity that they had characterized earlier. In the quantitative one, students overcome the limits in
which the formal entity were experimentally formalized to provide new parameters in the
description of the field relating to the movement of the lines with the source of the magnetic
properties (65%). Therefore, there is a double value of the experiment: validation and extension of
the model.
The representation of field lines became a conceptual reference tool for the primitive idea of
magnetic field and in the same time a source of in depth understanding of the nature of the field
itself: the problematic issue of predict the field line patterns promote the reflection on the formal
nature of magnetic field, the individuation of its vector nature and of the superposition principle
(RQb1).
The construction of a normalized magnetic field lines pattern proved to be a powerful context in
which introduce the flux tubes highlighting the potentiality and the limit of the field line
representation. The gradual construction of the formalization of the field starting from the
experimental exploration of its properties allows students to understand the meaning of the formal
representation used (both as concern vector and field lines representation). In particular, the
distinction between force and field is addressed (RQb2).
The role of the experimental exploration allows students to investigate the formal nature of the
magnetic field as an object characterized by intensity, direction and verse addressing also the
problem of its representation. Building so the conditions in which students can highlight steps of
identification of the properties of formal entity bringing them into relation to each other (RQb3).
CONCLUSIONS
Qualitative data analysis of the classes of answers to each inquiry question offers a broad amount of
data on the learning processes. Cross fertilization between Empirical-Research on T/L intervention
modules and Designed Based Research produces a vertical path for electromagnetic phenomena
interpretation, based on the research results. Some relevant aspects emerging in experimentations
are the following. The partial and local interpretation of some situations (as those presented in
Appendix 1) seems to be a pre-requisite in building a global interpretation of the electromagnetic
induction phenomena, where interpretative aspects are recalled through analogies. Abstract entities
invented during minds-on inquired based activities are re-used by pupils in a new framework, i.e.
pupils spontaneously use the compass as an explorer of the space magnetic properties, after the
analysis of its interaction with a magnet. The representation of the magnetic field became pivotal
point in the learning path for secondary students and the magnetic field lines becomes conceptual
referents for the concept of flux as a constant property of a magnetic field and base for e-m
induction interpretation. The PEC strategy in the path experimented help in contamination of
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efficient reasoning and significant changes from common sense to physics interpretations emerges
from data.
Acknowledgments. This work was possible under the framework of IDIFO Projects financed by
Italian Plan for Scientific Degree (PLS) of the Ministry of Education.
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APPENDIX 1
Situations proposed in the first part of the path and main problems posed.