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Keywords: evaluation; physics education; secondary school; semiconductor physics; teaching sequence. 
Introduction 
The field of electronics and electronic products is of outstanding relevance to today’s world. It has a 
significant presence in the workplace, at home, and in educational, cultural, and leisure environments 
(Butterfield, 2004). As a consequence, it has become necessary for young people to acquire a basic and 
adequate education in this scientific and technological discipline from an early age (Barak, 2002). 
Spain’s educational system introduces content of electronics beginning with the 2nd Cycle of Secondary 
Education [SE] [14-16 years of age] as part of the technology curriculum. Students learn the functioning and 
basic applications of the most elementary electronic components [diodes, transistors, condensers…] through a 
‘systems approach’ (Geddes, 1984), i.e., by studying their function in a system or electronic circuit. The 
physical aspects governing the behaviour of the systems are usually not dealt with. 
The advances in solid state physics —in particular semiconducting solids— have been the underlying 
reason for the outstanding developments in the science of electronics (Jenkins, 2005). We therefore believe 
that it may be interesting to include the study of elementary notions of semiconductor physics in SE, as part of 
the education in electronics currently being developed for this stage of education. 
Electronics has for years been included in both the SE technology and SE science [physics and chemistry] 
curricula in countries such as France (e.g. Polev, 1989), the United Kingdom (e.g. Ainley, 1984; Bevis, Gough 
& Deeson, 1985; Murphy et al., 2004;
Summers, 1985), Albania (Corati, Mulaj & Corati, 1995), Israel (Barak, 
2002), and Finland (Lavonen & Meisalo, 2000, 2003). Finland, for example, is developing an educational 
project denominated GEP [Get Electronics Project], whose aim is the coordinated introduction of electronics 
into the SE science and technology curriculum. 
But, in spite of the emerging awareness of the need to integrate electronics content into the science 
curriculum, we find that semiconductor physics has not yet received attention in that process. The treatment 
given to electronics in the science curriculum of the aforementioned countries is usually functional, copying the 
approach in the area of technology, i.e., without going into the physical foundations. Indeed, in the literature 
we have found no research that refers to the teaching and learning of semiconductor physics. 
We are not suggesting that teaching semiconductor physics should be obligatory in SE. We think that it 
must be the result of the perception on the part of each particular science teacher of a need to present some 
of this material at this educational stage. And also that, for this purpose, the teacher must bear in mind the real 
possibilities that correspond to the ages of the students and the current science curriculum. In our case, this 
perception was a result of the first of the authors teaching both science and technology to his SE students. 
After some years teaching electronics to the students in the area of technology, he felt that there was a need 
to complement this teaching by introducing some notions of semiconductor physics in his science classes 
(García-Carmona, 2006).