Enactive Modeling as a Catalyst for Conceptual Understanding: An Example with a Circuit Simulation

Abstract

This research explored how allowing students to actively control an electrical circuit simulation in real-time helps them better understand the complex behavior of electrical circuits. Many students, even at the college level, have misconceptions about electricity that make the subject more difficult to teach and learn via traditional methods such as lecture or textbooks. In this study, students used a unique real-time control interface to an animated circuit simulation in order to enactively model how an AC voltage source controls the current flow in a circuit. In enactive modeling, the student is an agent participating in the behavior of a dynamic system and is controlling one or more temporal aspects of the changes occurring in the system. After only a 30 minute tutoring session with the circuit simulation, students significantly gained in their understanding of some difficult concepts about circuit behavior, as measured by a multiple choice conceptual test. In particular there was evidence that students were able to overcome common misconceptions about the temporal behavior and flow of electrical current.