Science Misconceptions Research and Some Implications for the
Teaching of Science to Elementary School Students
In July, 1983, an international seminar on misconceptions in
science and mathematics was held at Cornell University (Helm and Novak, 1983).
Fifty-five papers were presented and 118 people registered for the seminar.
The proceedings of this conference were published, with the papers grouped
according to primary emphasis: theoretical and philosophical perspectives (8
papers), instructional issues (9 papers), research and methodological issues
(12 papers), historical and epistemological perspectives (5 papers), elementary
school science (2 papers), physics (11 papers), biology (6 papers), chemistry
(1 paper), and mathematics (5 papers). A second international seminar is scheduled
for the summer of 1987, also at Cornell.
Although elementary school science as a primary paper emphasis
accounted for only two papers, the area of misconceptions research has relevance
for the teaching of science to elementary school students. This digest has
been produced to describe what this area of research encompasses, to highlight
a few relevant studies, and to communicate some of the implications that the
findings of misconceptions research has for the teaching of science in the
elementary school.
A VARIETY OF TERMS
An article published in SCIENCE EDUCATION in April 1940 was entitled "An
Evaluation of Certain Popular Science Misconceptions" (Hancock, 1940). This
author defined a "misconception" as "...any unfounded belief that does not
embody the element of fear, good luck, faith, or supernatural intervention" (p.
208). Hancock considered misconceptions to arise from faulty reasoning. Current
science education researchers would probably take issue with this assumption.
Science educators, in the United States and abroad, who are interested
in conceptual development have used a variety of terms to describe the situation
in which students' ideas differ from those of scientists about a concept. Some
talk of students' misconceptions; others write of preconceptions; still others,
of naive conceptions; some, of naive theories; some, of alternative conceptions;
and some, of alternative frameworks.
Barrass (1984) wrote of "mistakes" or errors, "misconceptions" or
misleading ideas, and "misunderstandings" or misinterpretations of facts, saying
that teachers and brighter students can correct errors. But what attention
is paid to misconceptions and misunderstandings that are perpetuated by teachers
and textbook authors?
Driver and Easley (1978) contend that semantics indicate the
writer's philosophical position, saying that Ausubel talks of "preconceptions," which
are ideas expressed that do not have the status of generalized understandings
that are characteristic of conceptual knowledge. However, those who use the
term "misconception" indicate an obvious connotation of a wrong idea or an
incorrectly assimilated formal model or theory. And, those persons who use "alternative
frameworks" indicate that pupils have developed autonomous frameworks for conceptualizing
their experience of the physical world.
Helm and Novak, in the introduction to the proceedings of the
1983 seminar, stated that an issue which surfaced early in the meeting was
that "misconceptions" as a term carried with it some connotations that are
not appropriate (1983). This issue was not resolved, although Novak suggested
that researchers adopt the acronym LIPH, standing for "Limited or Inappropriate
Propositional Hierarchies." However, seminar participants decided that it was
too early in the history of research programs to attach an explicit label.
FINDINGS RELATED TO ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
What does all this mean in terms of teaching science in elementary
schools? Frequently, when science is taught to elementary school pupils, it
is taught as if the children had had no prior experiences relative to the topic
being studied. Misconceptions research contains findings indicating that this
is not a valid assumption. Children come to school already holding beliefs
about how things happen, and have expectations--based on past experiences--which
enable them to predict future events. They also possess clear meanings for
words which are used both in everyday language and in a more specialized way
in science. A child's view and understanding of word meanings are incorporated
into conceptual structures which provide a sensible and coherent understanding
of the world from the child's point of view (Osborne and Gilbert, 1980). Children
hold ideas that were developed before and during their early school years,
and these ideas may be compounded by the teacher and/or the textbook. It is
possible that children develop parallel but mutually inconsistent explanations
of scientific concepts--one for use in school and one for use in the "real
world" (Trowbridge and Mintzes, 1985).
Fisher contends that misconceptions serve the needs of the persons
who hold them and that erroneous ideas may come from strong word association,
confusion, conflict, or lack of knowledge (1985). According to Fisher, some
alternative conceptions, judged to be erroneous ideas or misconceptions, have
these characteristics in common:
- They are at variance with conceptions held by experts in the
field.
- A single misconception, or a small number of misconceptions, tend
to be pervasive (shared by many different individuals).
- Many misconceptions
are highly resistant to change or alteration, at least by traditional teaching
methods.
- Misconceptions sometimes involve alternative belief systems comprised
of logically linked sets of propositions that are used by students in systematic
ways.
- Some misconceptions have historical precedence: that is, some erroneous
ideas put forth by students today mirror ideas espoused by early leaders
in the field.
- Misconceptions may arise as the result of:
- the neurological "hardware" or
genetic programming (as in the case of automatic language-processing structures,
which may be invoked when "reading" an equation)
- certain experiences
that are commonly shared by many individuals (as with moving objects)
- instruction in school or other settings (p. 53).
Several reports have been produced as a result of a project carried
out at the Institute for Research on Teaching at Michigan State University
(Roth, 1985; Smith and Anderson, 1984a; Smith and Anderson, 1984b; Smith, 1983).
This representative (but not exhaustive) list relates to using activities from
the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS) with elementary school pupils.
SCIS activities were not sufficient to help students exchange their previous
conceptions so curriculum materials, a text, and a teacher's guide were developed
for use in the project. Even when these specially developed instructional materials
were used, misconceptions held by children proved difficult to change, although
the modified materials were more effective than SCIS (Roth, 1985).
Operating on the assumption that, if science in the schools is
to improve, elementary school science teaching has to improve, Lawrenz (1986)
investigated inservice elementary school teachers' understanding of some elementary
physical science concepts. She devloped a questionnaire using items from the
physical science test questions given to 17-year-old students as part of the
National Assessment of Educational Progress science studies, and found that
11 of the 31 items were answered correctly by 50 percent or fewer of the 333
teachers surveyed. Lawrenz concluded that some of the errors were due to lack
of content knowledge, but that others were indicative of serious misconceptions.
If teachers do not understand elementary physical science concepts, how can
they teach their students?
IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING, TEACHER EDUCATION
Lawrenz (1986) advocated inservice education, beginning with
very basic science concepts so that inservice teachers could have experiences
with concrete examples that conflict with misconceptions they hold. Then, teachers
should be shown and given numerous examples of how to identify misconceptions
held by pupils in their own classrooms.
Smith and Anderson (1984b) suggested that, in teacher education
programs, preservice teachers should be helped to develop ideas about conceptual
change in learning. Teacher educators must realize that their students have
conceptions about teaching and learning that are different from those the teacher
educators hold--and that the teacher educators should work to change these
students' misconceptions. They wrote:
Among the important learning outcomes teacher education should
address are the following:
- a conceptual change view of learning
- knowledge
of generic strategies useful in achieving conceptual change
- knowledge
of common misconceptions for several important topics and specific strategies
for changing them
- skill in selecting and adapting curriculum materials
based on common preconceptions held by students
- skill in diagnosing
student conceptions and recognizing them from student responses
- a view of theory as invented to account for observations rather
than deriving objectively and reliably from them (p. 697).
Engel Clough and Wood-Robinson (1985) have suggested several
things teachers may try, although they admit that these ideas have not been
tested:
- start with students' ideas and devise teaching strategies to take
some account of them
- provide more structured opportunities for students
to talk through ideas at length, both in small group and whole class
discussions
- begin with known and familiar examples
- introduce some
science topics into the curriculum at earlier grade levels, drawing on
out-of-school knowledge (p. 129).
Several researchers have emphasized the importance of allowing
pupils to explore their own ideas in a non-threatening atmosphere. Teachers
need to devise strategies for encouraging this exploration and for creating
the necessary classroom climate.
Teachers also need to consider the extent to which misconceptions
may be language difficulties. Teachers and students may fail to share the meaning
of the terms they use or the questions they ask.
Hopps (l985), in discussing cognitive learning theory and classroom
complexity, has provided some suggestions that are relevant to structuring
elementary school science lessons to deal with misconceptions:
- We cannot expect learners to identify and select key stimuli
without specific advice from teachers
- We cannot expect that all pupils will focus attention on key
aspects of the learning activity without deliberate action on the teacher's
part
- Models of conceptual change imply that the learner's ability
to reforge links between prior knowledge and sensory input is likely to be
of critical importance in learning
- Teachers can assist learners by providing the kinds of information
and experiences which will enable them to bridge the gaps between sensory input
and prior knowledge...ideas to be taught should always be related to the relevant
frameworks held by the learner and revision of the key parts of such frameworks
should not be undertaken lightly.
- Explanations of any links between new information and prior
knowledge should be made in a variety of ways so that learners are presented
with visual, verbal and/or a diagrammatic format of the principles to be taught.
- Whenever concepts or definitions are to be introduced, teachers
should provide significant numbers of examples and non-examples pp. 171-172).
References and Resources
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