PERC 2010 Abstract Detail Page
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| Abstract Title: | Improving Students’ Understanding of Electric Flux |
|---|---|
| Abstract: | A good understanding of the concept of electric flux is important for developing a functional understanding of Gauss's law. We investigate the difficulties that students in the calculus-based introductory physics courses have with the concept of electric flux and discuss the development and evaluation of a research-based tutorial to help students learn this concept. During the investigation of difficulties and development of the tutorial, we gave students written tests in the free-response and multiple-choice formats, interviewed a subset of students and also obtained feedback from physics instructors who teach introductory physics regularly. We discuss the performance of students on the pre-/post-tests given before and after the tutorial. We find that classes in which students used the tutorial outperformed those in which the tutorial was not used. *Supported by NSF. |
| Abstract Type: | Contributed Poster |
Author/Organizer Information | |
| Primary Contact: |
Jing Li University of Pittsburgh |
| Co-Author(s) and Co-Presenter(s) |
Chandralekha Singh, University of Pittsburgh |
