ABSTRACT
After about ten years of research in science education on students’ views on electric circuits it became clear in 1988 with the publishing of the ‘Study of students’ understanding of electricity in five European countries’ (Shipstone et al., 1988) that students’ everyday life views on electricity were very much the same in all European countries, and it seemed to be a hard job to guide students to accept and use the physicists’ view of electric circuits. As the study of Shipstone et al. shows the responses given to the questions of the ‘Europe Test’ were very similar for all countries involved, and the proportion of acceptable physics answers was equally disappointingly low. Whatever teaching approaches were used students’ everyday views on electricity prevailed and could not be shaken. A consistent physics understanding of electric circuits had not been developed at all or only in elementary steps.
