Study of the scientific understanding of the relationship between electric current and resistance in direct current circuits among 6th-grade high school students

The development of physics strategy requires to explore students' prior knowledge in various content areas for designing lesson plans, teaching materials, and assessments. Therefore, the objectives of this research are to design a conceptual test on the relationship between electric current and resistance in a direct current circuit and to explore students' scientific misconceptions. The test was applied to 51 students and was validated by experts for content validity, reliability, discrimination index, and difficulty index. The test consisted of 6 questions covering 4 learning objectives, and all questions met the standard criteria. The survey results showed that students had an average sound understanding of 46%. The learning objective with the most student misconceptions was comparing the amount of electric current in circuits with resistors connected in series and parallel (83%). Additionally, students’ misconceptions were analyzed from answers sheet into 7 Issues. The most common students’ misconception was that electric current is always constant, regardless of changes in total resistance or potential difference (43%). The second, the increasing resistance leads to increased electric current, or decreasing resistance leads to decreased electric current (24%).