Journal article
Supporting Learning About Energy With Fields—Evidence From a Mixed‐Methods Study
Journal of research in science teaching, Vol.62(8), pp.1859-1878
10/2025
DOI: 10.1002/tea.70006
Abstract
Energy is one important concept in physics, but science education research has repeatedly shown that students struggle to develop a full understanding of energy. Especially challenging for students is the notion of potential energy. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of potential energy forms, students struggle to make connections between them. Students often struggle to develop a conceptual understanding of potential energy, resulting in difficulties in learning about energy in general and their continued learning about energy. To address this issue, scholars have proposed incorporating fields into energy instruction. Through fields, the various forms of potential energy can be connected and synthesized into two simple underlying principles: (1) fields mediate interaction‐at‐a‐distance and (2) the energy is stored in a field with the amount of energy depending on the configuration of the objects. Recent studies suggest that incorporating fields in middle school energy instruction is feasible and effective; however, little is known about whether and how middle school students connect energy and fields ideas to benefit their learning. In response to this research gap, we developed a unit on energy with fields and a comparable unit without fields and compared students' learning on energy in these two units. In a mixed‐methods approach, we examined students' learning on energy during an introductory and a continued learning unit on energy with N = 67 students from grade 7. Our findings suggest that students who learned about energy with fields outperformed students who learned about energy without fields. Furthermore, fields‐based energy instruction seemed to support students in developing better‐connected knowledge networks that reflect deeper conceptual understanding of energy. Our findings suggest that incorporating fields into energy instruction could help students to better understand energy and to better continue learning about energy.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Supporting Learning About Energy With Fields—Evidence From a Mixed‐Methods Study
- Creators
- Kristin Fiedler - Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics EducationMarcus Kubsch - Freie Universität BerlinKnut Neumann - Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics EducationJeffrey Nordine - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of research in science teaching, Vol.62(8), pp.1859-1878
- DOI
- 10.1002/tea.70006
- ISSN
- 0022-4308
- eISSN
- 1098-2736
- Publisher
- WILEY
- Grant note
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: 458465679 German Research Foundation (DFG)
This article was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)-Project No. 458465679. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 03/17/2025
- Date published
- 10/2025
- Academic Unit
- Teaching and Learning
- Record Identifier
- 9984801667602771
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