Using visualizations to teach electrostatics

We investigate the effect of visualizations of electrostatics phenomena on students’ ability to integrate microscopic and macroscopic views of electrostatics in the context of a technology-enhanced inquiry project that features particle interactions. We used knowledge integration instructional design patterns to determine activity sequences. A pretest/post-test design was used to assess the students’ overall gains. The results from the implementation of the project in two classes demonstrate that it helped students form a more integrated understanding of electrostatics. An analysis of student responses to prompts embedded with the visualizations reveals that interactions with the visualizations played a significant role in increasing understanding.