Author Archives: david dykstra

In 1968, David Ausubel wrote “The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly.” (Ausubel, 1968, p. vi).  Unlike an earlier idea that learner are blank slates that need to be filled by the teacher, more recently, the Personal Construct Theory recognizes that the person is a meaning-make, capable being an active participant in their learning, and of making judgements about their interpretations of evidences (Shapiro, 1988).   If students enter a topic or concept with various misconceptions or alternative frameworks, this will negatively influence both their ability and willingness to incorporate new understandings.  In science, this is quite prevalent, perhaps because we first use simple analogies to explain a concept and then elaborate more fully later, or perhaps the nature of science allows children to make their own observations and interpretations first.  Whatever the reason, many students have misconceptions about various aspects of science.  For example, many of my Bio11 students believe penguins have fur not feathers!

I have chosen to work with the misconception that gases don’t have mass, or even have a negative mass.  This common misconception is likely due to students observations that adding more gas to a helium balloon causes it to float higher (Mayer, 2011), or trapping air bubbles under a toy in the bathtub allows it to float instead of sinking.  According to Mayer, (2011), even after students performed an experiment in a sealed flask demonstrating that the mass doesn’t change when a substance (iodine) goes from a solid to a gas, the majority still stuck to their false preconceptions and assumed they must have made an error in the experiment.  This lead Mayer to recognize that preconceptions are very difficult to remove (Mayer, 2011).  This phenomenon was also seen in the video clip about Heather and how she continued to stick to her theories about the strange curlicue orbit of earth and how light bounces to give indirect light.

So what do we do about these misconceptions.  Elliot (2016) notes that teachers who are aware of common misconceptions among their students were more effective, and that the common teacher approaches of avoiding students’ existing beliefs altogether or telling students clearly they are wrong and that they need to think differently are ineffective.  Posner et al (1982) view learning as a “process of conceptual change” where accommodation of misconceptions is needed to reorganize their current beliefs.  For accommodation to occur, learners need to be dissatisfied with their current idea or model, and the new model must be rational, intelligible, plausible, and fruitful for further research (Posner et al., 1982).  Teachers can use anomalies to point out limitations of misconceptions, thereby bringing the cognitive conflict (dissatisfaction) that drives new understandings (Elliot, 2016, Posner et al., 1982).  I would suggest that using technology is a good way to do this for many abstract concepts.  There are many online simulations (for example PhET) that enable learners to view the concepts, play with them, and visualize the greater explanatory ability of the scientific idea such as the states of matter and properties of gases (https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/states-of-matter).

• Ausubel, D.P. (1968). Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Elliott, K., & Pillman, A. (2016). Making science misconceptions work for us.Teaching Science, 62(1), 36-39.
• Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. (1987). A private universe. ISBN: 1-57680-404-6.  Retrieved from http://learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=9
• Mayer, K. (2011). Addressing students’ misconceptions about gases, mass, and composition. Journal of Chemical Education, 88(1), 111.
• Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W. and Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Sci. Ed., 66: 211–227. doi: 10.1002/sce.373066020.
• Shapiro, B. L. (1988). What children bring to light: Towards understanding what the primary school science learner is trying to do. Developments and dilemmas in science education, 96-120.