written by Chandralekha Singh and the University of Pittsburgh Physics Education Research Group

This research-based student tutorial covers the topics of Gauss's Law in electrostatics. The material is appropriate for a calculus-based introductory physics course.

The tutorial is designed for use after traditional instruction as an in-class supplement, out-of-class homework, or student self-study tool. The authors recommend that the tutorial be given in-class to students working in groups of 2-3. A majority of student groups can finish the pre-test and tutorial in a 1 hour 50 minute period.

A pre-test and post-test are available to assess student learning. If used, the pre-test should be given after traditional instruction and before the tutorial. The post-test should be given the following class so that students that do not finish the tutorial can do so at home before taking the post-test. The pre- and post-tests each require 15-20 minutes to complete. Professors may choose to give the pre-test in-class after traditional instruction, the tutorial as homework, and the post-test in the following class.

This work is based on research into students' common difficulties in applying Gauss's law in electrostatics. Some of these findings are available in Student Understanding of Symmetry and Gauss's Law of Electricity, Am. J. Phys. 74 (10), 923-936 (2006). Details of the design, construction and testing of the tutorial are available in J. Li, Improving Students' Understanding of Electricity and Magnetism, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2012 and J. Li and C. Singh, Investigating and improving student understanding of symmetry and Gauss's law, Eur. J. Phys. 39 (1), 015702 (2018).

• Download PittEMTutorial-4-PDFs.zip - 556kb Compressed File

Published June 14, 2012
Last Modified February 12, 2013

This file has previous versions.

This zip document provides the TeX files for the tutorial on exploiting Gauss's Law to find the magnitude of the electric field.

• Download PittEMTutorial-4-TexFiles.zip - 6491kb Compressed File

Last Modified February 12, 2013