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).

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

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

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.

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

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

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.