Most of them weren't making a circuit -- just running the wire from one end of the battery to the base of the bulb. That shows a very fundamental lack of understanding of what's going on, without even getting into things like the power requirements of the bulb.
I'm not sure they lack such understanding. Isn't this what psychologists call cognitive bias, or something like that? I believe there was a thread here on HK about it, a study showing that people often do irrational things because they assume they know everything. You know? People just think "geez, that is easy..." and rush to answear the first thing that comes to mind, just to discover that they missed the details and feel really stupid :P
Ah, ok, that makes more sense. I guess I assumed that they only showed the students holding the items after trying, not their actual effort. Now I'm a bit depressed.
