In this article an analysis of the difficulties experienced by students when applying the principle of superposition to electric fields is presented. A study of university level students in France and Sweden revealed the existence of difficulties arising out of two issues: (1) a causal interpretation of some relationships, (2) the student’s need for an effect, motion of some kind, to accept the existence of a field. The links between these obstacles and a lack of a unified view on electric phenomena are discussed from a pedagogical point of view.
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Rainson et al. (1994) studied this question.