Proceedings of the IETEC’13 Conference, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Copyright © Noor Hamizah HUSSAIN, Habibah Norehan HARON, Kamilah RADIN SALIM, Habsah HUSSAIN, Rosmah ALI, 2013 Predict-Observe-Explain tasks using simulation to assist students’ learning Basic Electric Circuits Noor Hamizah HUSSAIN, Habibah Norehan HARON, Kamilah Radin SALIM, Habsah HUSSAIN, Rosmah ALI Predict-Observe-Explain Tasks Using Simulation to Assist Students’ Learning in Basic Electric Circuits Noor Hamizah HUSSAIN Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia hamizah@ic.utm.my Rosmah ALI, Habibah Norehan HARON, Kamilah RADIN SALIM Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia rosmaha@ic.utm.my, habibah@ic.utm.my, kamilah@ic.utm.my Habsah HUSSAIN POLIMAS, Kedah, Malaysia habsah@polimas.edu.my ABSTRACT The goal of this work-in-progress is to investigate how simulations can assist students grasping concepts understanding in Basic Electric Circuit course. This study involved first-year Electrical Engineering students in Malaysia. Students were administered a pretest prior to the intervention. During intervention, each student was assigned to one computer station with NI Multisim installed. The incorporation of predict-observe-explain (POE) tasks during intervention was to monitor how students’ involvement in learning while doing the simulation. Students’ conversation during the POE task were recorded and analyzed qualitatively. Students were administered again on posttest at the end of the semester. Both pretest and posttest data were analyzed quantitatively. Findings show that students’ performance on concept test improved from pretest to posttest. Their conversation with peers during the POE tasks does help them verbalize their understanding and assist them to have in-depth grasped of the concept. Since learning Basic Electric Circuit is very abstract, therefore assisting students’ to learn through simulation does help them to visualize the working of the circuit. By being able to verbalize shows that students have good grasp on the concept taught. Students having difficulty in understanding basic concept of electric circuit is a global issue. Finding ways to assist them grasping the concept is very much needed. Simulation can assist them to be able to visualize the working of the circuits. Furthermore, by incorporating POE tasks can assist them to verbalize their concept understanding. This finding will be useful in developing new teaching and learning activities or adapting available ones to assist students grasping conceptual understanding of any courses. Keywords: Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) tasks, Basic Electric Circuit, Conceptual understanding, NI Multisim, Simulation, Visualize, Verbalize.