Towards a research program in designing and evaluating teaching materials: An example from dc resistive circuits in introductory physics

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] We argue that teaching learning sequence (TLS) design needs to be further developed through the explicit articulation of methodology, which comprises the theoretical commitments regarding research and how those give rise to methods for design, implementation and assessment. In this study we propose design based research (DBR) as a methodology to conduct systematic and iterative studies of the design and assessment of educational interventions (such as materials and strategies) as solutions to complex problems in educational practice. This methodology does not specify theoretical commitments regarding the nature of learning and how those give rise to teaching strategies, but the articulation of those commitments is expected as part of the justification for decision making in the design process. In order to demonstrate the framework, we present an example of TLS development in the context of introductory electrostatics and dc circuits. We describe the evaluation of the TLS over three years of implementation, addressing both the capacity of the TLS for involving students in learning the topic and the students’ learning itself.

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Figure 1

Changes made to the learning path from the macro-micro analysis of the electrical current (objective 4).

Figure 2

Changes made and new activities in relation to the students’ difficulties in relating the electric field and the charges generating it (objective 3).

Figure 3

Activity A.15.

Figure 4

Evolution of learning difficulties in control and experimental groups.

Figure 5

Representation of situation $A$ and $B$.

Figure 6

Representation of situation 1 and 2.

Figure 7

Conducting cylinder with different segments.

Figure 8

Resistive circuit.

Figure 9

Four schemes for distribution of the excess charge on the surface of a circuit.

Figure 10

Electrical circuit.