Electric current and electric circuit: some conceptions of everyday language

Abstract

Electricity contents in secondary school Physics teaching usually deal with some problems related to circuits and others on electrostatics but a deep discussion relating both contents is generally absent. Many words that identify elements of electrical phenomena are frequently used in everyday language associated with conceptions of atoms and electric current. In this paper the conception of electric current is related to the material structure and to its generation. The research involved students of four secondary school teachers; they were not teaching electricity at that moment. Two questions on the selected content were used with the students and answers, presented as text or drawings were analysed. The results show four main categories of common sense conceptions and they were considered as epistemological barriers for learning.