Conceptual resources for constructing the concepts of electricity: the role of models, analogies and imagination

The topic of electricity offers considerable challenge for the teacher hoping to provide students with an insight into scientific ways of thinking about circuits. The concepts used to make sense of electric circuits are abstract and students are expected to develop conceptual models of the relationship between non-observable qualities (current, p.d., resistance) in terms of other non-observables such as energy and electrons. Teachers introducing electrical ideas to lower secondary students need to find ways of enticing learners to engage with the topic at a theoretical as well as a phenomenological level. This article explores approaches taken by two trainee teachers working with lower secondary classes in England. The views taken here highlight the importance of helping students acquire conceptual resources suitable for later building the formal models expected by the end of the secondary phase. The implementation of case studies reveals complexities in teaching such abstract concepts to younger learners, underscoring the strengths and potential limitations of various pedagogic approaches to understanding electrical circuits.