Abstract:

This study investigated the effect of a bicycle analogy on the elimination of students’ alternative conceptions about electric circuits. The sample of this study consisted of hundred (100) first year science education students from the Faculty of Education at a South African university. A pre-test/post-test comparison group design was followed. A questionnaire was used to collect data. Data analysis was carried out by the use of the average normalized gain <g> scores. Thus,as a way of cross-validiting the statistical comparisons normalised gain scores were calculated in order to ascertain how much the group benefitted from the intervention.The value of <g> was more than 0,3 for an instructional intervention, the intervention is considered to be in the "interactive-engagement zone" thus indicating that teaching with a bicycle analogy has a significant positive effect on the alleviation of alternative conceptions held by the students in electric circuits.

Keywords:

Analogy, normalised gains, alternative conceptions.