Restructuring the Basic and Advanced Level Courses in Electromagnetic Fields (original) (raw)

In traditional electricity and magnetism (E&M) segment of introductory physics courses many increasingly abstract concepts, embodied in complex formal relations, such as Faraday's law are introduced at a rapid pace. Consequently, many students find the electricity and magnetism (E&M) course significantly more difficult than classical mechanics and struggle to understand advanced topics in circuit theory and electronic circuits. This paper identifies the problem areas in the present structure of the E&M course, and defines goals for a revised hierarchical organization of topics. The revised structure lays emphasis on making the central field concept more comprehensible and useful to students and recommends inclusion of advanced topics on electrodynamic theories in engineering curricula offering electrical and electronics courses as majors. Finally, results of studies comparing the performance of students of the revised E&M sequence with the performance of students who have underg...