Elementary Students' Conceptions of Magnetic Field by Drawing lines of Magnetic Field

자기력선 그림을 통한 초등학생들의 자기장 개념 조사

The purpose of this study is to examine elementary students' conceptions of magnetic fields around various magnets by drawing tasks. A total of 105 elementary students from the 3rd and 6th grade levels were asked to draw how iron filings would arrange around magnets. We classified their drawings of magnetic field lines with some criteria to identify conceptions of magnetic forces and checked them through interviewing about their representative drawing. Through analyzing drawings, we discovered that 40% of elementary students drew the correct arrangement of iron filings around a bar magnet. In the case of two bar magnets in opposite directions, 33% of them drew correct patterns of iron dust and around two magnets in the same direction only 20% did well. Only 2.9% and 7.6% of students presented the correct drawings of magnetic fields near a disc and a horseshoe magnet. While 3rd grade students were supposed to be poor in drawings of magnetic fields around a loose and a dense coil which was not learned about, only 31% and 23% of 6th grade students who have just studied electromagnetism properly drew patterns of iron dust. This shows that only one quarter of students understood the magnetic filed lines even after instruction of electromagnetism. Many of 6th grade students learned a solenoid becomes just as a permanent magnet, but very few of them correctly drew a magnetic field line could distinguish between the iron dust around a loose and dense coil. After interviewing students, it is found that students consider magnetic forces to be existed only in parts of magnet because many of them drew magnetic field line of a specific areas around magnets. Students had misconceptions that magnetic forces exist only on the poles not in the middle around a horseshoe magnet. Also the disc-shape magnet made students to reveal various types of misconceptions: N- and S-poles are mixed in a whole magnet and right part of a disc-shape magnet is N-pole, left part is S-pole. Students who had not studied magnetic fields of around a magnet and electromagnets could not draw the correct patterns of iron dust suggest that it is indispensable for students to teach how patterns of iron filings would represent a visual image of magnetic fields in order to understand magnetic fields.