Universal Journal of Educational Research

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the ability of Cambodian high school students to understand magnetic fields and forces through multiple representation skills. The survey research design was used to gather data involving 1685 students in grade 12, including 1000 females across 14 high schools in Phnom Penh. As a result, the data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent t-tests to explore the level of multiple representations in magnetic fields and forces and the differences in multiple representation abilities based on gender and school locations with multiple representation levels. The findings indicated that students had high proficiency in picture skills but low levels in diagrams, drawings, equations/formulas, symbols, spatial rotations, spatial orientation skills, and very low levels in graph skills.  There were significant differences by gender; male students performed better than female students in pictures, symbols, and spatial orientation skills. For school locations, significant differences were in pictures, spatial rotations, spatial orientations, and equations/formulas of multiple representation abilities, and urban schools outperformed suburban schools. Therefore, enhancing students' multiple representation abilities is crucial to help students develop a deeper understanding of abstract and complex concepts, strengthening female students to excel in those skills of multiple representations, and perform an action in suburban schools by providing numerous teaching methods, hands-on activities, and laboratory equipment to support multiple representations abilities for improving students' learning achievement in physics.