A sample of 40 students, selected from the last two classes of Italian secondary schools to participate
in a school of excellence in modern physics, after measuring resistance as a function of temperature of
metals and semiconductors and Hall coefficient at room temperature, was engaged in conceptual exploration
of contexts related to the nature of charge, voltage, current and electrical resistance. Results
highlight that the construction of the connection between macroscopic phenomenology and microscopic
models concerning electrodynamics processes is not only a success in physics, but it is also a possible
way to address the widespread and persistent difficulties that students face during the building of the
interpretative models.
