Grant Closed

Scientific Misconceptions: From Cognitive Underpinning to Educational Treatment

NCER
Program: Education Research Grants
Program topic(s): Cognition and Student Learning
Award amount: $933,397
Principal investigator: Andrew Heckler
Awardee:
Ohio State University
Year: 2005
Project type:
Development and Innovation
Award number: R305H050125

Purpose

In this project, the research team studied the cognitive origins of scientific misconceptions and designed interventions to correct misconceptions. In the early 2000s, one assumed barrier to successful science learning was scientific "pre-conceptions" or "misconceptions," which were found to be resistant to change. A scientific misconception is often defined as everyday beliefs about a natural phenomenon, and these beliefs are different from an expert scientist's view of the same phenomenon. At the conclusion of this project, the researchers' goal was to have a set of interventions that could be used to overcome scientific misconceptions and improve science learning.

Structured Abstract

Setting

The research will take place at Ohio State University and in a suburban middle school in Ohio.

Sample

Participants in this research project include 400 students in 6th grade and 2,500 college undergraduates. Students are either participating in laboratory experiments or in an educational intervention implemented as part of standard curriculum activities.
Intervention
The ultimate goal of this research project is to design curricular materials for both sixth grade science courses and for a university-level physics course that incorporates experimentally determined means to help students correct physical science misconceptions.

Research design and methods

The research will carry out in this project occurs in four parts. First, researchers recreate, demonstrate, and study parameters of "misconception-like phenomena" caused by blocking, learned inattention, and inferential bias errors in controlled artificial domains. Second, the researchers are using a theoretical understanding of misconceptions to design and test the effects of various methods that address artificial "misconception-like phenomena." Third, the researchers are designing and implementing simple lessons for known physical science misconceptions hypothesized to originate from blocking, learned inattention, and inferential bias errors. Fourth, the researchers are designing, implementing, and assessing curricular materials that can confront misconceptions in physics for both a sixth-grade classroom and a university-level physics course. In the classroom experiments, classes of students are randomly assigned to condition.

Control condition

Experimental controls are used in each of the laboratory experiments. In the classroom experiments, students in the control condition are completing activity sheets that use a standard educational instructional strategy that is significantly different from the first two experimental strategies.

Key measures

Experimenter-developed measures and tests of student understanding of taught physics content are used.

Data analytic strategy

Analysis of variance techniques are used to analyze outcome data for the experiments.

People and institutions involved

IES program contact(s)

Elizabeth Albro

Elizabeth Albro

Commissioner of Education Research
NCER

Products and publications

ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.

Select Publications

Book chapters

Heckler, A.F. (2011). The Ubiquitous Patterns of Incorrect Answers to Science Questions: The Role of Automatic, Bottom-Up Processes. In J.P. Mestre, and B.H. Ross (Eds.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Volume 55: Cognition in Education(pp. 227-267). San Diego: Elsevier Academic Press.

Journal articles

Hupp, J., Sloutsky, V.M., and Culicover, P.W. (2009). Evidence for a Domain-General Mechanism Underlying the Suffixation Preference in Language. Language and Cognitive Processes, 24(6): 876-909.

Kaminski, J.A., Sloutsky, V.M., and Heckler, A.F. (2008). Response to J. Mourrat, L. Cultrona, and S. Reed. Science, 322: 1633.

Kaminski, J.A., Sloutsky, V.M., and Heckler, A.F. (2009). Concrete Instantiations of Mathematics: A Double-Edged Sword. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 40(2): 90-93.

Kaminski, J.A., Sloutsky, V.M., and Heckler, A.F. (2009). Transfer of Mathematical Knowledge: The Portability of Generic Instantiations. Child Development Perspectives, 3(3): 151-155.

Kaminski, J.A., Sloutsky, V.M., and Heckler, A.F. (2013). The Cost of Concreteness: The Effect of Nonessential Information on Analogical Transfer. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 19(1): 14-29.

Kaminski, K.A., Sloutsky, V.M., and Heckler, A.F. (2008). The Advantage of Abstract Examples in Learning Math. Science, 320(5875): 454-455.

Robinson, C.W., Best, C.A., Deng, W., and Sloutsky, V.M. (2012). The Role of Words in Cognitive Tasks: What, When, and How?. Frontiers in Psychology, 3(95): 1-8.

Robinson, C.W., and Sloutsky, V.M. (2007). Visual Processing Speed: Effects of Auditory Input on Visual Processing. Developmental Science, 10(6): 734-740.

Robinson, C.W., and Sloutsky, V.M. (2008). Effects of Auditory Input in Individuation Tasks. Developmental Science, 11(6): 86-881.

Sayre, E.C., and Heckler, A.F. (2009). Peaks and Decays of Student Knowledge in an Introductory E and M Course. Physical Review Special Topics—Physics Education Research, 5(1): 013101-013105.

Sloutsky, V.M. (2008). Analogy is to Priming as Relations are to Transformations. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(4): 396-397.

Sloutsky, V.M. (2010). Mechanisms of Cognitive Development: Domain-General Learning or Domain-Specific Constraints?. Cognitive Science, 34(7): 1125-1130.

Sloutsky, V.M., and Fisher, A.V. (2011). Linguistic Labels: Conceptual Markers or Object Features?. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 111(1): 65-86.

Sloutsky, V.M., and Fisher, A.V. (2008). Attentional Learning and Flexible Induction: How Mundane Mechanisms Give Rise to Smart Behaviors. Child Development, 79(3): 639-651.

Proceedings

Heckler, A.F., Kaminski, J.A., and Sloutsky, V.M. (2006). Differential Cue Salience, Blocking and Learned Inattention. In R. Sun and N. Miyake (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1476-1481). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Heckler, A.F., Kaminski, J.A., and Sloutsky, V.M. (2008). Learning Associations That Run Counter to Biases in Learning: Overcoming Overshadowing and Learned Inattention. In B. C. Love, K. McRae, and V. M. Sloutsky (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 511-516). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Kaminski, J.A., Heckler, A.F., and Sloutsky, V.M. (2008). Blocking Effects on Dimensions: How Intentional Focus on Values Can Spill Over to the Dimension Level. In B. C. Love, K. McRae, and V. M. Sloutsky (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1075-1080). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Rosenblatt, R., Sayre, E.C., and Heckler, A.F (2008). Toward a Comprehensive Picture of Student Understanding of Force, Velocity and Acceleration. In Proceedings of 2008 Physics Education Research Conference (pp. 182-186). Melville, NY: AIP Conference Proceedings.

Sayre, E.C., and Heckler, A.F. (2008). Evolution of Student Knowledge in a Traditional Introductory Physics Classroom. In Proceedings of 2008 Physics Education Research Conference. Melville (pp. 195-198). Melville, NY: AIP Conference Proceedings.

Scaife, T.M., and Heckler, A.F. (2007). The Effect of Field Representation on Student Responses to Magnetic Field Questions. In Proceedings of 2007 Physics Education Research Conference (pp. 180-183). Melville, NY: AIP Conference Proceedings.

Questions about this project?

To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.

 

Questions about this project?

To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.

 

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