Laboratory and Multimedia in Science Teaching: Experiments about Magnetic Force

AbstractWe investigated the effectiveness of using multimedia tools in favoring learning of magnetic forces, a topic that physics education research showed to be particularly complex and difficult for students. We designed a sequence of experiments that was tested with about 150 high school students. Our results compared with the ones reported in the literature indicate that student's understanding of the direction and magnitude of the magnetic force markedly improved and typical difficulties were overcome. The work also allowed create a group of in service teachers who continue cooperating with the researchers in experimenting and improving the activity sequence