Introduction 1.1 Objectives of the study In March 1991, the authors organized an International Workshop "Research in Learning Physics: Theoretical Issues and Empirical Studies" in Bremen, Germany (Duit, Goldberg, Niedderer 1992). The principal idea of the workshop was to extend the very successful research tradition on students' - 2 - preconceptions to the investigation of learning processes. One
... [Show full abstract] of the results was to give a high priority to investigations of "learning pathways" in all topics relevant for instruction. The research question of the present study relates to this issue in the domain of electric circuits: - How can a learning process of a single student be described which took place during an instruction of six sessions (90 minutes each)? This is both a question of methods and results in this special topic area. In doing this we use the following theoretical assertions: - Students start with many prior conceptions or preconcepts from their ev
