Smaill, C., & Rowe, G. (2012, June), Electromagnetics Misconceptions: How Common Are These Amongst First- and Second-year Electrical Engineering Students?  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21268

\bibitem{asee_peer_21268}
  Smaill, C., \& Rowe, G. (2012, June), \emph{Electromagnetics Misconceptions: How Common Are These Amongst First- and Second-year Electrical Engineering Students?}
  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas.
  10.18260/1-2--21268

Chris Smaill and Gerard Rowe.  "Electromagnetics Misconceptions: How Common Are These Amongst First- and Second-year Electrical Engineering Students?".  2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2012.  https://peer.asee.org/21268 Internet.  10 Mar, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_21268}
  Chris Smaill and Gerard Rowe.
  "Electromagnetics Misconceptions: How Common Are These Amongst First- and Second-year Electrical Engineering Students?".
  \emph{2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2012.
  https://peer.asee.org/21268 Internet.  10 Mar, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_21268
author = "Chris Smaill and Gerard Rowe"
title = "Electromagnetics Misconceptions: How Common Are These Amongst First- and Second-year Electrical Engineering Students?"
booktitle = "2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2012"
month = "June"
address = "San Antonio, Texas"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/21268}
number = {10.18260/1-2--21268}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -            Electromagnetics misconceptions: how common are these         amongst first- and second-year electrical-engineering students?Each year, the University of XXX (UoX), a large research-led university of around 40 000students, accepts about 600 students into the first year of its four-year Bachelor of Engineeringdegree. These students increasingly come from a diverse range of national and internationalbackgrounds. Compounding this diversity, national students now have a choice of three distinctpathways to university. Further, the modular nature of the most common of these pathwaysmakes it possible for students to study only some aspects of the physics curriculum and ignoreothers, such as the electrical systems module. Given the above, it can no longer be assumed thatfirst-year students have a shared base level of knowledge.For a course to be effective, the instructors require a good insight into the skills andunderstanding of their students. However, in the past, diagnostic tools such as the Force ConceptInventory have revealed student misunderstandings that were far more extensive and prevalentthan instructors believed. Today, the increased academic diversity of the incoming student bodymeans that instructors, without the help of suitable diagnostic tools, are even less likely to havean accurate grasp of the skills and understanding of incoming students.Pre-tests have been administered at the start of two courses, ELECTENG 101 since 2007 andELECTENG 204 since 2011, to provide instructors with factual information about incomingstudents’ skills and understanding. ELECTENG 101, Electrical and Digital Systems, is acompulsory course taken by all 600 first-year engineering students at UoX. ELECTENG 204,Engineering Electromagnetics, is part of a compulsory common program for all 150 year-twoelectrical-and-electronic and computer-systems engineering students. The ELECTENG 101 pre-test aimed to determine incoming students’ levels of conceptual understanding of electricalcircuits and electromagnetics, and consequently to modify where necessary the course content,delivery, and remedial interventions so as to provide the best learning opportunities for allstudents. The ELECTENG 204 pre-test was similarly motivated, but focussed just onelectromagnetics. The findings concerning electrical circuits have been previously reported: thispaper therefore presents an analysis of the findings related to students’ levels of conceptualunderstanding of electromagnetics.The pre-tests revealed several commonly-held key misconceptions. A survey of the literaturesuggested that, while comparatively little research has been done into electromagneticsmisconceptions, these are prevalent internationally. A number of related commonmisconceptions involve forces: Newton’s third law in an electromagnetics context, the forceexperienced by a stationary charge in a magnetic field, the direction of the force experienced bya moving charge in a magnetic field, and the trajectory followed by a moving charge in amagnetic field. There are also common misconceptions centred on equating electric fields withmagnetic fields, confusing direction of cause with direction of effect, and relating inducedvoltage to magnetic flux rather than change in flux. All the evidence is that these misconceptionsare common amongst students. Therefore it is important that instructors are aware of them whileconstructing and delivering courses. The hope is that this paper will go some way to increasinginstructor awareness.
AU  - Chris Smaill
AU  - Gerard Rowe
CY  - San Antonio, Texas
DA  - 2012/06/10
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Electromagnetics Misconceptions: How Common Are These Amongst First- and Second-year Electrical Engineering Students?
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/21268
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--21268
ER  -