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Many students in physics courses fail to achieve a desired conceptual change because they assign an incorrect ontology to the to-be-learned concept. This situation has been detected in previous research for the case of field lines: many college students assign material properties to the lines and describe them, for example, as tubes that contain or transport charges. The historical evolution of this concept shows that early scientists like Faraday assigned material properties to these lines in some occasions. In the present work a history-based instructional material was designed to foster the analysis of the ontology of field lines to help students at an Argentinean university achieve conceptual change. The predicates used by the students to describe physical situations were used as evidence of the assigned ontological status. Conceptual change was measured by the change in the proportion of geometrical predicates that students used when referring to the lines in a written questionnaire. This change was significantly higher for the students learning with the history-based material compared to those that learned in the regular class. Some characteristics of the material and geometrical ideas that students hold about the field lines were determined through an oral interview.

Analyzes how two electromagnetism textbooks approach the concept of electric field. Uses historical evolution of the field representation. Indicates that one textbook mixes up the historical and pedagogical reasons for the introduction of the concept of field while the other one presents a sketch that might lead students to understand the field and the action-at-a-distance views as supplementing each other. (KHR)

Analyzes how electric and magnetic lines of force were conceived by Faraday and how they are understood by a group of Argentine university students after receiving instruction. Results show that many students possess ideas similar to those of Faraday in that lines of force are conceived as real physical entities responsible for the transmission of the electric action. (Author/MM)