Physics Teachers Strategies and Reflective Ability for Addressing Pupils’

Misconceptions in the Classroom

Nurulhuda Abd Rahman

Faculty of Education
The University of Manchester, UK
0161-202-6532
nurar@hotmail.com

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual

Conference, University of Manchester, 16-18 September 2004

Keywords: Misconceptions, Physics, Reflectivity

Abstract: Research into pupils’ ideas has established that pupils bring with them
preconceptions about the natural world that are mostly at odds with the scientific
conceptions (termed misconceptions) that teachers are trying to teach in class.
Research in this area has also advocated that effective teaching entails teaching
strategies that take into account these pupils’ misconceptions and which emphasize
conceptual understanding (as opposed to rote learning) Researchers called these
strategies teaching for conceptual change strategies. In order to identify teaching
for conceptual change strategies that teachers employ during regular lessons,
classroom observations and interviews were conducted with 14 secondary physics
teachers. Novice and experienced teachers’ strategies for addressing pupils’
misconceptions, and their ability to be reflective about their way of addressing these
misconceptions were analysed. Almost all the teachers in this study did not employ
any specific teaching for conceptual change strategies as articulated in the literature
such as cognitive conflict, bridging analogy, or metacognitive strategies. They were
seen to rely heavily on a question-and-answer strategy with low-level, recall
questions designed to assess pupils’ understanding. Only three out of the fourteen
teachers (1 experienced and 2 novices) conduct class discussions where pupils were
encouraged to express their ideas and only three teachers (2 experienced and 1
novice) were seen to specifically address pupils’ misconceptions. Post-lesson
reflective interviews reveal that teachers’ reflections vary in their depth, and this
variation appears to be independent of experience. The implications of these
findings and recommendations for teacher training are presented.

Introduction

This is a report of the second phase of a study, which investigates teachers’

pedagogical content knowledge with regards to pupils’ misconceptions in physics
learning. Specifically the study aims to understand how teachers’ viewpoints about
misconceptions relate to their classroom teaching practices in terms of addressing

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these misconceptions. The study also investigates teachers’ reflection about their way
of addressing misconceptions in the classroom as this may provide insight into the
complex relation between teachers’ stated beliefs and practice. The first phase of the
study, which was reported elsewhere (Abd. Rahman, in press) was conducted to
explore physics teachers’ views and attitudes towards misconceptions in physics
learning. The finding is presented briefly in the next section.

Most people would agree that beliefs and views play a significant role in determining
how we perceive, interpret, and organize information (Schommer, 1990). For
teachers, it also serves as a basis for action in the classroom (Pajares, 1992). Pajares
noted that terms such as views, beliefs, attitudes, values, judgements, opinions,
conceptions, dispositions, to name a few, have all been used to refer to beliefs. In this
study, the term views or viewpoints is used to indicate general idea or opinion about
something. For Haney, Lumpe, Czerniak, and Egan (2002), beliefs are “personal
convictions or ideas” one holds. Clusters of beliefs form attitudes or action agendas
(Ajzen, 1985). In the science domain, although there are many studies that explore
teachers’ beliefs and viewpoints (views about the nature of science, nature of teaching
and learning, etc.) and how these beliefs and viewpoints affect their instructional
practices in the classroom, there are very few studies that attempt to explore teachers
understanding of pupils’ misconceptions of a specific subject and how this relates to
the way teachers deal with the misconceptions in their classrooms. This seems to
confirm Fang’s (1996) claim that “little attention has been paid to teachers’ beliefs
about particular components of a subject area” (p. 59). Consequently, little is known
about what teachers’ ‘conception of misconceptions’ is even though this should be an
important element influencing how teachers acted in the classroom when confronted
with such misconceptions. However previous studies which investigated the relation
between teachers’ stated beliefs and action showed mixed results. Even results within
a particular study found that beliefs are not always valid predictors of practice (Haney,
Lumpe, Czerniak & Egan, 2002, Widodo, Duit, & Muller, 2002). These findings
suggest that the relation between belief and practice is complex with many variables

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contributing to the teachers teaching behaviours. Argyris and Schön (1974) put
forwards the notion of “espoused theory” and “theory-in-use”:

“When someone is asked how he would behave under certain circumstances,

the answer he usually gives is his espoused theory of action for that situation.
This is the theory of action to which he gives allegiance, and which, upon
request, he communicates to others. However the theory that actually governs
his actions is his theory-in-use, which may or may not be compatible with his
espoused theory; furthermore, the individual may or may not be aware of
incompatibility of the two theories” (p. 6-7)

In other words, teachers’ action may not always be seen to be consistent with their
espoused beliefs. Teachers’ actual classroom practice reflects theories-in-use, which
are, not only governed by teachers’ espoused theory but also by contextual factors
(e.g. classroom environment, pupils’ ability, etc.). Hence, there may be a substantial
gap between teachers’ views and actions (Duit, 2002). For example, teachers who
articulated a constructivist view of teaching and learning will not necessarily teach in a
manner consistent with their espoused constructivist view. Underlying these two
variables is the teachers’ ability to reflect upon their practice in class, which may
provide some sort of bridge between the two. The literature on teachers’ reflection
suggests that reflective teachers are teachers who are able to identify and recognize a
significant issue, apply educational principles and techniques within a framework
based on their own experiences, values and beliefs, on which to base and justify their
action or disposition so as to reach a certain goal (Calderhead, 1988; Schon, 1987; Jay
and Johnson, 2002; Zeichner and Liston, 1996). This conception of reflective teacher
implies that reflection has a positive link with teachers’ professional development in
terms of their ability to effect quality pupils’ learning, hence a desirable ‘asset’ for a
teacher. Reflection helps reconcile prior beliefs with theory and practice, bridge the
gap between theory and practice, and reconstruct professional knowledge from
contextual knowledge 9Calderhead, 1988; Schon, 1987). There is a general consensus
that reflectivity leads to professional growth (Allen, 1997). There is however little
research carried out to systematically link reflection to teaching behaviours and
beliefs. Efforts in this direction have often focused on the thinking of preservice

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teachers (Taggart and Wilson, 1998) and hence provide rather limited picture on the
state of reflective abilities of teachers in general. There are empirical evidence to
suggest that purposeful and focused reflection on one’s practice have a direct impact
on beliefs and subsequent practices and move teachers towards more constructivist
teaching approaches (Richardson, 1996).

This study aims at extending the understanding of the extent of teachers’ awareness
and knowledge of pupils’ misconceptions in physics (via the first phase) and the
complex relation between the teachers’ stated beliefs and practice (via observation of
practice and post-lesson interview). Observation of practice is also a way of getting
insight into not only the nature of teachers’ “espoused” beliefs but also on their
“theories-in-use” as well. Post-lesson reflective interview provides data that can be
used to evaluate teachers’ reflective thinking in relation to their views and actual
behaviours in classrooms.

Teachers’ general beliefs and attitudes towards pupils’ misconceptions

In the earlier phase of the study three distinct teachers’ subjective viewpoints emerged
from factor analysing data using Q technique, which is the method of analysing data in
studies employing Q methodology (Refer to Brown, 1980 for a full description of Q
Methodology). Briefly, participant teachers rank-ordered a set of 50 statements (Refer
to Appendix A for the list of the 50 statements) from agree to disagree, according to a
quasi-normal distribution, followed by a focused interview during which a sorter
elaborated on his/her experience. Q-sort data was factor analysed using PQMethod,
version 2.11 (Schmolck, 2002), a dedicated statistical software which produced among
other results, factors that correspond to distinct types of beliefs or attitudes. Result
shows that operationally, two thirds of the twenty-three participants involved were
tolerant/positive acceptant (17.4%), confrontational/non acceptant (30.4%) or less
aware/indifferent (17.4%) about the status of misconceptions and how to address
them. The other one-third teachers who did not fall under these three categories can be

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classified as either hybrid teachers (they loaded significantly onto two or more factors;
30.4%) or a null case (he defined none of the main factors; 4.3%).

Tolerant teachers had a more positive attitude towards pupils’ misconceptions and did
not reject the idea that a misconception can be considered as an alternative way of
looking at a problem situation. Although they advocated, ultimately, the replacing of a
misconception with the appropriate scientific conception, they supported promoting
multiple perspectives approach towards a problem situation in equal fervour. They did
not support ‘teaching by confronting’ misconceptions in order to resolve them.
Tolerant teachers were also not convinced that misconceptions interfere with pupils’
learning of scientific conceptions. After all they thought that some misconceptions are
helpful for everyday purposes. For example, the idea of ‘force causes motion
(velocity)’ is helpful when you wish to move something around the house. However
this may constitute a misconception since Newtonian conception of motion states that
‘force causes change in motion (acceleration)’ not velocity. In order to address
misconceptions in class, tolerant teachers believed that it requires a good balance
between teachers’ subject knowledge and pedagogy. Hence there was a lack of support
for conventional teaching methods, which usually include one-way lectures and a
recipe-based laboratory.

By contrast, confrontational teachers had a negative attitude toward pupils’

misconceptions. They believed that misconceptions are inherently flawed, and hence are
not useful material for either building expert conceptions or for everyday purposes. There
was a strong support amongst these teachers for a confrontational approach when dealing
with misconceptions, which should be dealt with in class because they believed these
misconceptions will not go away with further exposure and experience. They were
however ambivalent towards conventional teaching methods preferring not to espoused a
particular teaching method.

The third type of teachers presented as less aware or even indifferent about
misconceptions. Teachers in this category were uncertain about quite a lot of crucial

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issues concerning misconceptions such as the worth of misconceptions in learning and
everyday lives, the extent to which the problem affects learners, and the way to address
the problem in class. However it should be borne in mind that there are some similarities
among teachers who hold different perspective on some dimensions. Q factor analysis
does not assume the categories are mutually exclusive – people can resemble more than
one factor to differing degrees.

With regards to differences between novice and experienced teachers’ views, the result
suggests that there is little difference between them. Without the use of inferential
statistics (because of the small number of participants) it cannot be inferred with
confidence whether the difference is statistically significant or not. However the data
show that every factor type is represented by both groups of teachers. This suggests that
experienced teachers can be just as tolerant, confrontational or less aware of
misconceptions as novice teachers. In terms of awareness and understanding of pupils’
misconceptions, it also means that teachers don’t necessarily simply improve by having
years of teaching experience. On the other hand, recent Initial Teacher Training National
Curriculum (DfEE, 1998) has put an emphasis on PCK in the area of pupils’
misconceptions. It clearly specified that teacher trainees be taught about pupils’
misconceptions in terms of their existence, origins and the way to address them in class.
If the new training curriculum has any significant effect on the teachers, it is expected
instead that novice teachers will be more aware of pupils’ misconceptions as they
emerged fresh from their training.

Based on these three perspectives what may the teachers see as tasks for teaching?
Results suggest that all three perspectives have similar judgments about teaching tasks.
All advocate that in the end misconceptions need to be removed and replaced with the
appropriate conceptions. Universal support for a ‘remove and replace’ approach is not
surprising and is most probably due to the fact that, at the end of the day, pupils will face
a fairly severe assessment process based largely on their science knowledge and
understanding (and reflecting to some extent on how well they have been taught). The
difference is in the way the teachers go about ‘removing and replacing’ these

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misconceptions. From one perspective it is the ‘softly-softly’ approach whereas the other
is the ‘confrontational’ approach. Still another is clouded by uncertainties. How do the
‘softly-softly’, ‘confrontational’ and ‘uncertain’ approaches translate into classroom
practice, if at all? Do these approaches in fact specifically address pupils’ misconceptions
during lesson? How do these practices compare with the ones advocated by research in
this area as being potentially superior in terms of resolving misconceptions? Do these
practices relate in any way to the teachers’ views and attitudes towards misconceptions
which the earlier phase of the study has brought to light? Were the teachers able to be
reflective about their way of addressing these misconceptions if one became apparent
during their lesson? These are among the questions that this phase of the research will try
to answer.

A review of strategies to explicitly address misconceptions

Research programme in the area of pupils’ conceptual understanding in science has not
only provided a huge amount of information about pupils’ misconceptions per se, but
also its implications for classroom practice. One strong implication is advocating
teaching strategies that take into account pupil’s misconceptions and which emphasize
conceptual understanding (as opposed to rote learning), popularly known as teaching for
conceptual change. Teaching for conceptual change draws upon various aspects of
underlying learning theories but the two most influential models of learning are the
conceptual change model and the constructivists learning model. The term conceptual
change itself denotes learning pathways from pupils’ preconceptions (which could
include correct and incomplete conceptions and also misconceptions) to the science
concepts to be learned (Duit, 2002)

Conceptual change model is a model of learning where learning is seen in terms of

“conceptual development or change rather than the piecemeal accretion of new
information” (Scott, Asoko, & Driver, 1992, p. 310). In science education, several
models of conceptual change learning have been proposed by researchers including the
seminal model by Posner, Strike, Hewson and Gertzog (1982). They put forward four

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conditions that must be met in order to bring about this type of conceptual change: (1)
The pupils must be aware of and dissatisfied with his/her currently held alternative
conceptions, (2) the alternative conception must be intelligible, (3) the alternative
conception must appear plausible, and (4) the alternative conception must appear fruitful.
In a review of teaching for conceptual change strategies, Scott, Asoko and Driver (1992)
broadly identified two main categories of strategies to promote conceptual change. The
first category is based upon “cognitive conflict” and its resolution. In general, it refers to
a strategy that involves confronting directly and explicitly pupils’ misconceptions which
include questioning pupils and encouraging them to articulate clearly their ideas about a
phenomenon to expose any misconceptions that they may have about the phenomenon.
Once misconception is identified pupils are guided through discussion, hands-on
activities, demonstration and the like towards the appropriate scientific conception.
Anomalous data that will create “cognitive conflict” are presented, which presumably
will ‘disequlibrate’ pupils and motivate them to rethink their explanation of the
phenomenon (Dykstra, Boyle, & Monarch, 1992). Examples of this type of strategy
include Contrastive Teaching (Schecker & Niedderer, 1996) and Predict-Observe-
Explain (POE) (Gunstone, 1995), to mention a few. The second category involves using
analogy or metaphor by building upon pupil’s existing understandings that are somewhat
consistent with the scientific view but in need of refinement and reorganization in order
to be totally in line with the scientific view. An example of this type of strategy is
bridging analogies (Clement, 1993). However the second category may be broaden to
include other strategies that do not involve the use of analogy or metaphor but which are
built upon pupils’ existing ideas. An example of this type of strategy is Grayson's
concept substitution (1996). Concept substitution as a strategy uses pupils’ appropriate
idea about a phenomenon that they have associated with an inappropriate terminology, as
a starting point (Grayson, 1996). Conceptual change is promoted via substituting the
correct terminology for the incorrect one. An example is substituting the term ‘energy’
for the term ‘current’ when pupils employ the ‘current consumption’ model to a simple
electric circuit. Another example is Metacognitive strategies (Baird and White, 1996).
The purpose of metacognitive strategies is to "generate information that will help people

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to be knowledgeable about, aware of, and in control of what they are doing" (ibid, p.
191).

Although these strategies have limitations particularly in terms of the time required to
actually carry them out in the classroom, some extensive reviews of the literature have
concluded that these methods are mostly superior to traditional approaches in terms of
promoting student conceptual understanding of science and mathematics (Duit &
Confrey, 1996).

Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and reflectivity

Perhaps the greatest concern teachers have to implement conceptual change

teaching approaches is the intellectual demand that it places upon teachers. What is
required of a teacher in order to successfully teach for conceptual change? All of the
strategies discussed above require the teacher to be responsive to the ideas and
understandings of pupils (Scott, Asoko, & Driver, 1992). The teacher must be sufficiently
confident in his/her own understanding of the subject matter. Limitation on subject matter
knowledge minimizes the teacher’s flexibility and creativeness because he/she fails to
appreciate and respond to differing points of view. This will lead to little exploration of
ideas (Leinhardt et al., 1990). In addition, teachers need to create a classroom
environment in which pupils feel confident and able to express and discuss their views
openly without the fear of being ridiculed (Scott, Asoko, & Driver, 1992).

In sum teachers must possess the necessary content knowledge, pedagogical content
knowledge, and the skill to create a constructivist classroom environment. Shulman
(1987) conceptualized pedagogical content knowledge as the ‘amalgam’ of content
knowledge and general pedagogical knowledge. It includes “an understanding of what
makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult; the conceptions and preconceptions
that students of different ages and backgrounds bring with them to the learning of those
most frequently taught topics and lessons….knowledge of the strategies most likely to be
fruitful in reorganizing the understanding of learners…” (Shulman, 1986, p. 9-10), should

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the preconceptions turn out to be misconceptions. Implicit in pedagogical content
knowledge is the ability of teachers to reflect on their actions. According to Van Manen
(1977) reflective thinking involves three levels similar to those Zeichner and Liston
(1987) describe. In technical reflection or technical rationality, the teacher considers only
the best way to reach a given end by applying rigidly their educational knowledge and
principles. In practical reflection the teacher becomes concern with clarifying
assumptions underlying competing pedagogical goals while at the same time assessing
the impact his action may have on various stakeholders (e.g. pupils and schools). In
critical reflection the teacher incorporates the wider context of moral, ethical, and
political values to bear on the educational processes and actions. Sparks-Langer et al.’s
(1990) have developed a Framework for Reflective Thinking that translates Van Manen’s
three levels of reflective thinking into an operational framework that can be used to code
teachers’ responses to reflective interview questions or other forms of written work such
as journal entries or written responses to videotaped sequences of classroom teaching.
This framework is adopted for the purpose of the study with a slight revision and is
shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1 Framework for Reflective Thinking*

Description
Level 1 No descriptive language.
Response unrelated to the variable of interest.
Level 2 Event and experiences described in simple, layperson
terms.
Level 3 Events and experiences described with appropriate
pedagogical terms.
Level 4 Events and experiences explained with tradition or
personal preference given as the rationale.
Level 5 Events and experiences explained with principle or
theory given as the rationale.
Level 6 Events and experiences explained with principle /theory
while also considering contextual factors.
Level 7 Events and experiences explained with principle /theory
while also considering contextual factors and ethical,
moral and/or political issues.
*Adapted form Sparks-Langer et al.’s (1990) Reflective Pedagogical Thinking Framework

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Method

The study involves classroom observation and post lesson reflective interview of fourteen
secondary physics teachers. Data collected include written notes and audio-taped
transcription of the lessons, teachers’ lesson aims and objectives, and audio-taped
transcriptions of post lesson reflective interview with each teacher. Unfortunately, only
one classroom observation per teacher was carried out due to time constraint and
difficulty of recruiting teachers for the observation. In the earlier phase of the study the
teachers understanding of pupils’ misconceptions and their choice of strategy to resolve
the misconceptions have already been explored via Q technique which involves a card
sorting session and post-sorting interview. For this phase of the study the classroom
observations provided information on how the teachers taught physics, the strategies they
used, and their interactions with pupils in the classroom. Particular attention was paid to
how the teachers actually address any misconceptions that became apparent to the
researcher during the lesson. These observations also provided information on the pupils:
their questions, answers, and reactions to the teachers. An instrument with a
constructivist underpinning was used to analyse data from classroom observation in
conjunction with analyses of apparent pupils’ misconceptions and teachers’ strategies to
address them. The instrument called Science Classroom Observation Rubric (SCOR) was
developed by Burry-Stock and her research team in 1995. SCOR was chosen on the basis
that conceptual change learning in general and addressing pupils’ misconceptions in
particular, were incorporated in the instrument. SCOR can be found in Appendix B. The
post lesson reflective interview provided data about teachers’ thoughts and reflections on
their own teaching. This in turn can provide the data that linked teachers’ thinking to
classroom practices.

Participants

The nature of the problem in the study requires the inclusion of new and experienced
teachers. Participants include seven secondary novice physics teachers, with science

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teaching experience less than two years, and seven experienced physics teachers with
more than ten years experience, from nine different schools in the Manchester and
Greater Manchester area. There were five female and nine male teachers with less than
half (6 teachers) specialized in Physics. All of the teachers have qualification at least at
the degree level. All of the teachers teach Physics in state-funded schools except for two
of them who teach in the same independent school. Two of the state-funded schools have
the leading edge and technology college status. The majority of pupils from all the
schools are white and the number of males and females in each class were quite balance
except for one class where the school is all-boys school.

Data Collection

Data were gathered from two sources: (1) observing teachers teach during regular lessons
and (2) interviewing teachers after the completion of the lesson.

Classroom Observations: Before the start of every lesson observation, teachers filled in a
pre-observation form containing descriptions of main idea, lesson purpose, procedures,
and intended learning outcome. Teachers were already informed of the purpose of the
observation when they were first invited to participate in the study. During observation,
raw data were collected in the form of observation notes written on a blank pad.
Particular attention was given to pupils’ and teachers’ interaction when an apparent
misconception arose during the lesson. Pupils and teachers’ questions, answers,
statements and bodily actions and reactions were noted down in these circumstances. A
list of possible misconceptions compiled by the American Institute of Physics in
Operation Physics Project (1998) was used to facilitate the misconception identification
process in conjunction with other resources. SCOR also helps inform the processes to be
observed. Some of the observed lessons were also audio-taped, and these were
transcribed to provide a full length presentation of what actually transpires during the
lesson.

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Post Lesson Reflective Interview: Following the lesson, a short structured reflective
interview was held with each teacher. This is conducted with the intention of exploring
teachers’ ability to reflect on their teaching after a classroom lesson with a particular
emphasis on the thinking and the actions taken by the teachers to address pupils’
misconceptions during the lesson. The interview is a structured interview in the sense that
several fixed questions were put forward in a specific order for every participant. The
interview questions were adapted from Pultorak’s (1993) Reflective Analysis Questions,
and is shown in Table 2. The interviews, as far as possible, were conducted immediately
after the class sessions are over so that what transpired during the lesson is still fresh in
the minds of the teachers and the observer. These interviews were audio taped with the
participants’ consents. Audio-taping is crucial so that the researcher can concentrate on
the interview without the pressure of having to jot down the interview verbatim.

Table 2 Reflective Interview Questions*

a. What do you feel were the essential strengths of the lesson?
b. What, if anything, would you change about the lesson? Why? On what basis are you
making that decision?
c. Do you think the content covered was interesting or of relevance to the pupils’
everyday lives? Why?
d. What, if any, pupils’ misconceptions became apparent to you from the lesson?
e. In terms of resolving this misconception, do you think the lesson was successful?
f. Can you think of another way you might have taught this lesson that might improve
the learning process, specifically with respect to resolving the misconceptions?
g. Are there any other issues or concerns you found yourself thinking about as a result
of the way you try to cope with the misconception during the lesson?
* Adapted from Pultorak’s Reflective Analysis Questions (1990)

Data Analysis

The data were analysed in three respects: (1) on apparent and possible misconceptions
and the teachers’ strategies to address them (both from the researcher’s and the teachers’
perspectives), (2) on teachers’ overall teaching competence from the constructivist

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perspective (using Science Classroom Observation Rubric) and, (3) on the level of
teachers’ reflection based on Sparks-Langer et al.s’ framework for reflective thinking.

Classroom Observation: The observation notes and audio-taped transcriptions were

analysed for evidence of misconceptions held by the pupils and/or by the teachers
themselves. In addition they were analysed for the strategies to address the
misconceptions used by the teachers. These data were also analysed using the Science
Classroom Observation Rubric (SCOR). This provides quantitative secondary data that
can be used to build a profile of the teacher as seen from the constructivist perspective of
teaching and learning. The instrument assesses both teaching and learning behaviours
within the framework of constructivism and exemplifies the “ideal” criteria towards
which teachers should aim. In order to assess the teaching practices, the instrument uses a
rating scale ranging from 1 to 5, with points 1, 3, and 5 operationally defined whilst
points 2 and 4 being interpreted as points between the definitions for 1, 3, and 5. Since
the instrument was written from a constructivist and expert science teaching perspective,
a rating of “5” would indicate an expert level of constructivist teaching practices.
Similarly, a rating of “3” indicates a “capable, experienced teacher” and a “1” indicate
“poor constructivist teaching practices.” (Burry-Stock, 1995, p. 28) If no information is
provided a “0” rating is used. A scoring sheet is used to record the results of the analysis.
The maximum score that can be attained by a teacher is 90. Percentages for the overall
performance and each category are then computed. The instrument uses the scale shown
in Table 3 to estimate the level of competence of the teacher for the particular lesson
experience.

Table 3 Levels of Competence

Percentages Competency Levels
85% – 100% Expert
70% - 84% Proficient
35% - 69% Competent
15% - 34% Advanced Beginner
01% - 14% Novice

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Briefly, the novice stage “is characterized by skill development” where teachers learn to
follow rules and rigidly apply them in class. The advanced beginner “is characterized by
the importance of broad skills and by the use of more sophisticated rules”. They are more
flexible with the application of rules as they learned from previous experience to apply
the rules according to differing situations. The competent stage is “exemplified by
teachers who cope with problems and students in a hierarchical process of decision
making”. In general competent teachers consciously choose rules and goals based upon
the situation with a sense of personal responsibility for the outcome. The proficient stage
“involves thinking analytically but intuitively organizing and understanding the task”.
The expert stage is “established on maturity and practical understanding” They perform
automatically, almost intuitively and fluently when making decisions.

Post Lesson Reflective Interview: Interview responses provided data on teachers’

thoughts and justifications for their classroom practice. The responses were transcribed
and were content analysed for the relevant information to answer the research questions
such as the apparent pupils’ misconceptions and the teachers’ strategies for addressing
these misconceptions. In addition, the responses to were coded and assessed using the
framework for reflective thinking (Table 1). The progression of levels indicates a
growing sophistication in teachers’ thinking, moving from technical rules and concepts to
contextual and ethical thinking (Sparks-Langer and Colton, 1991). Lower level
reflections are those that merely describe events. The lowest level however can be taken
as non reflection but is included to code responses that meet this criterion. Higher level
reflections are those that attempt to explain events and experiences in light of theory or
principle(s). The highest level reflection also takes into consideration the broader issues
of ethics, moral or politics.

Results

In the following sections apparent misconceptions/errors and the strategies used by the
teachers to address them are presented. Analysis of teachers teaching performance based
on SCOR is also presented. In addition analysis of post-lesson interview responses

15
generated a list of misconceptions/errors as apparent to the teachers and how they said
were addressed during the lesson. Teachers’ levels of reflectivity based on the reflective
thinking framework are also presented.
Identified misconceptions/errors and teachers’ strategies to address them

In this section, only lessons in which misconceptions became apparent to the

researcher were analysed, together with the strategies used by the teachers to address
them. All the misconceptions were apparent during a whole-class discussion, usually in
the context of a question-and-answer session. Of the fourteen lessons observed,
misconceptions became apparent in eight lessons; four of these lessons were conducted
by novice teachers and four were conducted by experienced teachers. Table 4 lists all the
identified or possible misconceptions and the strategies used by the teachers to address
them in class. Each apparent misconception was tallied once when it was initiated by the
teachers and/or the pupils for each different way the teachers reacted to it, and for each
different lesson. For example, the misconception, ‘The direction of motion is in the
direction of force’ was apparent during two different lessons where at least two pupil-
initiated instances were addressed, but none of the teacher-initiated instances were
addressed.

In total, the frequency of the teachers initiating a particular misconception is 9

times as opposed to the 13 times the pupils initiated a misconception. However, two of
the teacher-initiated instances were actually done deliberately by the teachers as a way to
address the misconceptions. Taking this into consideration then, the pupil-initiated
instances of apparent misconceptions were almost twice as much as the teacher-initiated
instances. In sum there were at least 22 instances of apparent misconceptions during the 8
observed lessons. On average, there were at least 2 instances of apparent misconceptions
during each lesson observed. These numbers show that misconceptions can be brought to
the surface not only by the pupils but the teachers too during a classroom interaction.
Although the teacher-initiated misconceptions surfaced less frequently (half as
frequently) than the pupil-initiated ones, they are potentially more ‘harmful’ in the sense
that a misconception might be ‘passed on’ or reinforced, and also because none of the

16
misconceptions (except for the two that were deliberately presented) were addressed
during the lessons. In other words, all the teachers’ ‘inadvertently-initiated’
misconceptions were not ‘visible’ to the teachers and hence were not addressed.
Examples of these misconceptions are presented and explained later in this section.

The strategies listed below are descriptions of the teachers’ practices as observed
by the researcher and based on the notes and transcriptions of the observed lessons. They
are labeled and correspond to the following descriptions:

PRESENT: Presented the misconception to the class without waiting for it to emerge
from the pupils. Techniques employed include whole class demonstration, explanation
and/or analogy.
Frequency of use: Twice (1 Novice, 1 Experienced).

ELICIT: Posed questions around a specific phenomenon that pupils commonly have
misconceptions about and elicited several answers from pupils before explaining the
correct answer, followed by;
(i) Practical whole class demonstration.
Frequency of use: Twice from the same teacher (Experienced)
(ii) Demonstration by computer animation.
Frequency of use: Once from the same teacher as ELICIT (i)
(Experienced).

NEGATE: Dealt with pupils’ wrong answers (with an underlying misconception) during a
question-and-answer session by replying “wrong”, “no” or “not right” and subsequently
looked at other pupils for the correct answer to the question posed. Immediately stopped
asking when one became available with;

(i) A short subsequent teacher explanation.

Frequency of use: Four times (The same experienced teacher)

(ii) No subsequent teacher explanation.

Frequency of use: Once (Novice).

17
SUBSTITUTE: Concept substitution is where the teacher substituted the correct
terminology for an incorrect one.
Frequency of use: Once (Novice).

UNAWARE: Unaware of or ignored the misconceptions.

Frequency of occurrence: 11 times from 8 different teachers (4 Novice, 4 Experienced).

It is important to note that PRESENT and ELICIT are the only strategies
employed that appeared to specifically address pupils’ misconceptions. The PRESENT
strategy was employed by two teachers, one ‘confrontational’ novice teacher and the
other a ‘hybrid’ experienced teacher. In contrast, NEGATE and SUBSTITUTE are listed
to present teachers’ practice as pupils’ misconceptions became apparent to the researcher
(not necessarily apparent to the teachers themselves). As such the teachers may not be
specifically addressing their pupils’ misconceptions during these instances. They may just
be reacting to pupils’ wrong answers to the questions they posed, as there was no
evidence of probing for pupils’ understanding by asking pupils to elaborate upon their
answers. The NEGATE strategy was employed by two teachers, one ‘confrontational’
experienced teacher and the other a ‘less aware’ novice teacher.

None of the teachers observed used any type of specific instruments such as pre-
testing, interviewing, concept mapping or journals to identify pupils’ misconception at
the outset. In addition, none were seen to employ any specific conceptual change teaching
strategies, confrontational or otherwise, to address these misconceptions. However, there
were limited attempts at confronting pupils’ misconceptions using a question-and-answer
method, and also analogy. They were limited because the pupils were not deliberately
made to confront and actively reflect on the discrepancies between their ideas and the
appropriate scientific ideas they were trying to learn. In other words, none of the
strategies used involved deep interaction with the misconceptions where pupils were
prompted to question the teachers’ explanations, or to explain and/or justify their answers
to the questions asked.

18
 Table 4 Misconceptions that Became Apparent* or had High Potential to be
Developed by the Pupils or Reinforced by the Teacher**

Misconceptions Strategy used Misconception Attitude

to address initiated by (Level of
Teacher/Pupil/ Experience,
T&P E/N)
1 An object floats because it is lighter UNAWARE P C2 (E)
than water*
2 An object floats because it contains air* UNAWARE P C2 (E)
3 An undifferentiated mass/volume NEGATE (i) T&P C2 (E)
concept*
4 An undifferentiated weight/density UNAWARE T C2 (E)
concept*
5 An undifferentiated mass/weight NEGATE (i) T&P C2 (E)
concept* PRESENT T H2 (E)
6 Current/electricity is a material object* UNAWARE P T2 (N)

7 Current/electricity is used up in an PRESENT T C3 (N)

electrical circuit* SUBSTITUTE P T2 (N)
8 Objects in circular motion experience ELICIT (i & ii) P C1 (E)
an outward force*
9 Direction of motion is in the direction ELICIT (i) P C1 (E)
of force* and ** UNAWARE T C1 (E)
UNAWARE T&P H1 (E)
10 An undifferentiated NEGATE (ii) P L (N)
velocity/acceleration concept* UNAWARE P H1 (E)
11 Bigger objects always have more UNAWARE T H2 (E)
mass**
12 Closer always means stronger** UNAWARE T&P C4 (N)

The questions asked were usually limited to low-level recall questions, aimed at
getting the correct answer from the pupils. These limited attempts account for 11 out of at
least 22 instances (50%) where misconceptions became apparent to the researcher. The
other half of the instances were either ignored, or the teachers were unaware of them.
With the exception of one novice teacher, all the teachers were unaware of or ignored at
least one instance of misconception during their lessons.

In comparing the experienced and novice teachers’ lessons, there were

substantially more instances of misconceptions (16 out of 22 instances, or 72.7%)
apparent during experienced teachers’ lessons. This is probably due to the nature of the
topics taught during the lessons. The topics include force and motion, floating and

19
density, and mass and weight. These are areas where extensive research has been done on
pupils’ misconceptions, and as such an extensive list of misconceptions was documented
in the literature in these areas. Hence the researcher was more sensitive and alert to
possible misconceptions in these topics, than in topics that were less well explored, such
as the solar system, the transformer and magnetism. Three novice teachers (3 instances)
and three experienced teachers (8 instances) appeared to address some of their pupils’
misconceptions, albeit only the two experienced and one of the novice teachers were seen
to specifically address their pupils’ misconceptions. These two experienced teachers were
in fact the teachers who had specifically planned for addressing the pupils’
misconceptions. This suggests that there may be a high percentage of teachers who would
specifically attend to their pupils’ misconceptions if they were aware of the common
misconceptions related to a particular topic at the planning stage and had an intention to
address them. In a way the teachers were sensitised to the pupils’ misconceptions during
teaching, hence were able to act on or react to them accordingly:

Now I know what their basic misconceptions are, next lesson I could put
the misconceptions and start the activity with say, is a match a light
source? Paper, is it opaque or translucent. Things like that…
(Novice)

Although limited, this result also showed that the experienced teachers
specifically addressed misconceptions more than the novices, but it only accounts for a
quarter of the time. Table 5 summarises the results of comparing novice and experienced
teachers’ actions on misconceptions. Since there is an unequal number of instances where
misconceptions were observed for each group of teachers, the percentages calculated for
each group were based upon the total number of instances for that group only.

20
 Table 5 Comparing Percentages of Action on Misconceptions between Groups
According to the Level of Experience

Level of experience
Misconceptions that were: Novice Experienced Overall
Counts % Counts % Counts %
Initiated by teachers 2 33.3 7 43.8 9 40.9
Initiated by pupils 4 66.7 9 56.2 13 59.1
Specifically addressed 1 16.7 4 25.0 5 22.7
Appeared to be addressed 2 33.3 4 25.0 6 27.3
Ignored or not apparent to the 3 50.0 8 50.0 11 50.0
teachers
Total number of instances of 6 27.3 16 72.7 22 100
misconceptions

Teachers’ Classroom Observation Rubric Profile

Analysis using the SCOR is presented in Table 6. They show the profile of the 8 teachers
in whose lessons misconceptions became apparent to the researcher. Table 6 compares
the competency of the teachers according to the level of experience for each of the
rubric’s dimension and also the overall competency level for the lesson observed.

Table 6 Descriptive Statistics of SCOR Categories for 8 Selected Observed Teachers

SCOR Experienced Novice Overall

Category
Mean % FLP 53.0 62.0 57.5
(Competent) (Competent)
CTNP 60.0 54.3 57.2
(Proficient) (Proficient)
CTXP 56.5 50.0 53.3
(Competent) (Competent)
CK 72.5 68.8 70.7
(Proficient) (Proficient)
Overall 60.5 58.8 59.7
(Competent) (Competent) (Competent)

FLP: Facilitating the Learning Process

CTNP: Content Specific Pedagogy
CTXP: Context Specific Pedagogy
CK: Content Knowledge

21
Facilitating the Learning Process (FLP) and Context Specific Pedagogy (CTXP)
categories are the categories that are directly related to addressing misconceptions in
class. Experienced and novice teachers had relatively lower scores in these two categories
(57.5% and 53.3% respectively) than the other two categories (57.2% and 70.1%).
Experienced teachers’ means are higher in all of the categories than novice teachers’
means except in the Facilitating the Learning Process category.

Addressing pupils’ misconceptions is explicitly subsumed under the Context Specific

Pedagogy. Teachers were scored ‘1’ for ‘resolution of misconceptions’ if it was not
clearly apparent that they specifically addressed the misconceptions. There are a total of
five teachers with a score of ‘1’ for the ‘resolution of misconceptions’ dimension, two
teachers with a score of ‘2’ and only one teacher with a score of ‘3’. None scored ‘4’ or
‘5’. A score of ‘3’ is described as “As the student misconceptions become apparent, the
teacher usually facilitates student efforts to resolve them by gathering evidence,
participating in discussion with students, or fostering discussion among students”. This
data suggest that there were very limited efforts towards making pupils aware of their
misconceptions. Efforts to guide pupils towards the scientific conceptions were usually
carried out via a question-and-answer session with low-level recall questions. The
teachers usually looked out for the ‘correct’ answers to these questions, ignoring aspects
that appear to be irrelevant or wrong from their point of view. Hence pupils’ ideas were
not sufficiently explored. In general the data suggest that for this group of teachers,
although experienced teachers have the edge over novices, both profiles are similar, and
that addressing pupils’ misconceptions in class is not one of their stronger points or top
priority. However a small sample size means statistical significance testing cannot be
carried out. Hence it cannot be inferred with confidence whether the small difference is
statistically significant or not.

22
Analysis of Strategies Used Compared to Beliefs and Attitude Towards Pupils’
Misconceptions.

In this section the eight teachers’ strategies to address pupils’ misconceptions as

observed in class are compared to their espoused strategies and general beliefs about
misconceptions. Table 7 summarises the findings. For the purpose of this analysis, only
enacted strategies where the researcher thought misconceptions were specifically
addressed are listed. Otherwise “none observed” is listed. Details of the strategies used
were described earlier.

Table 7 Espoused and Enacted Strategies According to Categories of Attitude

Category of Attitude Towards General Espoused Enacted Strategy

Misconceptions Strategy
Tolerant (n=1) Non-confrontational None observed
(e.g. use of analogy) (T2)
Confrontational (n=4) Confrontational (e.g. Low-level question-and-answer
direct questioning) (C1)
Teacher explanation during a
role play and use of analogy
(C3)
Less Aware/Indifferent (n=1) No clear orientation None observed
(L)
Hybrid (n=2) No clear orientation Teacher explanation during a
demonstration
(H2)

From classroom observations tolerant teachers (1 novice and 1 experienced teacher) were
not seen to specifically address any misconceptions either by direct confrontation or by
other non-confrontational ways of addressing the misconceptions (which admittedly may
not be obvious to the researcher, hence were not detected during the observation). One of
the tolerant teachers however, did make a terminology substitution, from electricity to
current, but did not elaborate upon it. This was taken as a ‘none observed’ case. Only two
of the confrontational teachers specifically addressed their pupils’ misconceptions: one
confronted via question-and-answer sessions, the other via teacher explanation during a
role play and use of analogy. The only teacher who was in the less aware/indifferent

23
category did not appear to address his pupils’ misconceptions as evidenced from the post-
lesson interview. For hybrid teachers, only one of the teachers (out of three) was seen to
specifically address pupils’ misconceptions during practice. He did this via direct
explanation during a demonstration.

In conclusion, teachers’ views and general beliefs about pupils’ misconceptions do not
appear to be translated into teaching practice. In all, pupils’ misconceptions were mostly
not addressed due to lack of awareness of misconceptions at the planning stage and
during teaching. Although the teachers have opinion about what a misconception is and
how to address it (albeit general and not fully informed by specific research findings), the
teachers appeared not to see or unaware of these misconceptions during teaching. The
lack of awareness is supported by the result from the post-lesson interview.

Teachers’ Post-Lesson Reflection

In the next section, pupils’ misconceptions that became apparent to the teachers and how
the teachers said they addressed them were presented. In addition comparison is made
against the researcher’s observation. Teachers’ level of reflectivity is also presented.

Teachers’ strategies and apparent misconceptions as perceived by the teachers:

Content analysis

In this section the interview data is analysed to find out whether the teachers have
identified any pupils’ misconceptions during their lesson, and if so to describe the
strategies taken by the teacher as told by them. Table 8 presents the misconceptions that
were apparent to the teachers during their lesson and their thoughts on the effectiveness
of the lesson and a better way (if any) of addressing the misconceptions.

Teacher Apparent Misconceptions Strategy used Misconceptions Better way of

(Attitude) resolved? addressing the
misconception
T1 Failure to differentiate between ‘Recapping’ or “I think by None, the present
current and voltage. reviewing and recapping it approach was

24
 explaining to does help pupils adequate
whole class. with
misconceptions”
T2 Electricity can flow in an open Hands-on Yes: in terms of Use of
circuit. experiment achieving the ‘misconception
testing out learning cartoon’ in the next
pupils’ own objectives lesson
‘theories’
C1 There is an outward force acting Q&A “Yes, I think it None really,
on a rotating beam was” question-and-
answer well suited
for immediate
feedback on pupils’
thinking.
C2 None Not applicable Not applicable Not applicable
C3 None Not applicable Not applicable Not applicable
C4 The arrangement of the solar Explaining to “I think it was, More worksheets
system is in a straight line with the whole class yeah” for pupils to work
centre of the system being the on to prevent them
middle planet. from being restless.
H1 Failure to distinguish between Use of “Pretty No, the Internet
velocity and acceleration. interactive successful in session was
Failure to relate graph to a real Internet what I want to planned. Its step-by-
world motion. animation with achieve. Only step logical build up
Failure to realise that a flat speed Q &A and partly: a one-off plus questions and
vs time graph corresponds to a worksheets for is not enough”. worksheets can
zero acceleration. individual confront pupils
work individually when
they work on them.
H2 Failure to distinguish between Q &A “I think None really, the
mass and weight. followed by successful for problem is inherent
demonstration some of the and difficult to
pupils” unlearn
H3 The source of light for a cinema Explaining to Only partly: yes Confronted the
screen is the same as a television whole class for the cinema misconception by
screen. screen asking pupils
A candle is not a light source misconception directly on the
whereas a match is a light source. but not the specific problem
Failure to distinguish between the others area
concept of opaque and translucent.
L Not realising that acceleration can Explaining to “It went some Hands-on
occur from any speed to another. whole class way to address experiment and
Acceleration always starts from it” demonstration
zero velocity.
Not realising that a negative
acceleration means a deceleration.
Table 8 Pupils’ Misconceptions that were Apparent to the Teachers and Teachers’
Reflection on Their Way of Addressing the Misconceptions
All of the teachers except for two of them recalled some pupils’ ‘misconceptions’ during
their lessons. However some of the misconceptions the teachers recalled are more like
errors or simple mistakes. An example is the understanding that the solar system is in a
straight line with the centre of the system being the middle planet. This is because the

25
confusion may easily be remedied via comparing a close-up and long-shot graphical
presentation of the whole solar system. Pupils may then be able to see arrangement of the
solar system from two different perspectives. Many researchers would tend to disagree
that misconceptions are simply errors or mistakes (Leinhardt et al. 1990; Hasan et al.,
1999). Errors or mistakes imply superficial or surface slip-ups, which can relatively
easily be remedied. They may simply be a result of defective memory, mental exhaustion
(Tirosh, 2000), a lack of knowledge, etc. Within the cognitivist constructive framework,
misconceptions on the other hand, are widely viewed as “a strongly held cognitive
structures that are different from the accepted understanding in a field and that are
presumed to interfere with the acquisition of new knowledge” (Hasan et al., 1999). In
addition some of the misconceptions recalled were not apparent to the researcher. It is
possible that the researcher had missed them during the observation but one alternative
explanation for the discrepancy is that the teachers may have recalled the misconceptions
from their years of teaching the topic and not from the lesson just observed. There are
also mismatches in the number of misconceptions recalled by the teacher as opposed to
the ones observed by the researcher. In general the researcher tended to observe more
misconceptions than recalled by the teachers. In comparing novice and experienced
teachers, experienced teachers’ recollections were more in line with the researcher’s
observation. Novice teachers tended to cite errors rather than misconceptions. This
suggests experienced teachers have greater knowledge of relevant misconceptions in the
topic taught than the novice teachers. The novice teachers did not differentiate between
deeply rooted misconceptions and errors or mistakes. Such an understanding, i.e. that a
misconception is just a mistake or an error pupils make during a particular lesson, means
that a teacher would tend to address the common misconception as if it were any simple
mistake or error, for example, correcting the misconception and giving a direct
explanation rather than probing for the pupils’ reasoning. However, out of the 14
different misconceptions that were apparent and/or recalled, only 3 misconceptions were
apparent to both the researcher and the teachers. This constitutes only about a 21%
agreement between the researcher and the teachers. This substantial mismatch is the
reason why the researcher’s perception of the teachers practice differs from the teachers’
perceptions of their practice in relation to pupils’ misconceptions.

26
With regards to the strategy used to address these misconceptions, all the teachers’ stated
and/or inferred strategies from the interview responses were limited to question-and-
answer and teacher explanation. As all the teachers used more or less similar strategies, it
is not possible to associate teachers’ attitude with their strategies in relation to pupils’
misconceptions. However all the teachers were observed to act on or react to pupils’
misconceptions and/or errors that they said became apparent to them during their lessons.
Experienced teachers tend to be more satisfied with their teaching performance than
novice teachers.

Levels of reflectivity

Analysis of 10 selected teachers’ responses based on Sparks-Langer et al.’s framework

for reflective thinking shows that most teachers were able to respond at an appropriate
level with the nature of the questions asked, i.e. lower-level responses to low-level recall
questions and higher-level responses to more open-ended questions requiring
explanations and justifications. Levels of reflectivity vary from as low as 1 to as high as
6. None of the teachers reflected on how social, cultural and political diversity affected
their instructional actions (at level 7). Other researchers evaluating teachers’ levels of
reflection (e.g. Pultorak, 1993; Sparks-Langer et al., 1990; Seng, 2001) obtained similar
results. One possible explanation for this result is the nature of the question asked.
Although it is broad enough to invite teachers to reflect critically, the essence of the
question is about pupils’ misconceptions in a topic that ‘traditionally’ does not lend itself
readily to thinking about moral aspects of teaching (e.g. velocity, acceleration, electric
circuit, etc.). In contrast, teachers may readily see ties to social and ethical values when
discussing a topic such as reproduction in Biology. Table 9 shows the mean values of the
reflection levels of the teachers, broken down in terms of the level of experience.

Table 9 Mean Level of Reflectivity in Relation to the Level of Experience for 10

Selected Observed Teachers

27
Experience level
Low-level Higher-level questions
questions
Categories of attitude Qa Qd Qb Qc Qe Qf Qg Overall
Mean Mean

Mean
Experienced 4.0 3.0 3.5 4.6 4.8 4.7 5.0 5.3 4.9 4.5
Novice 3.2 3.4 3.3 4.8 4.2 4.5 5.3 4.8 4.7 4.4

The small difference in the mean scores suggests that novice teachers are very similar to
experienced teachers in terms of the ability to apply educational principles and technique
while reflecting on their teaching behaviour. Although it is expected that experienced
teachers would demonstrate contextual thinking more than novice teachers, the data does
not conclusively support this expectation. Of course the data was taken from a small
number of participants and generalising the finding to the larger population may be
misleading. However, this result paralleled the results obtained from the classroom
observation (e.g. the SCOR score) that in relation to pupils’ misconceptions, the
experienced teachers have an edge over novice teachers, but the apparent difference is
small.

Summary and Conclusion

This study explores physics teachers’ awareness of pupils’ misconceptions and their
strategies to address these misconceptions as perceived by both the researcher and the
teachers during an observed lesson. It was found that:

a. There was a substantial difference in the misconceptions identified by

the researcher and the ones recalled by the teachers. From the point of view of the
researcher, all the novice teachers recalled pupils’ errors or mistakes rather than
misconceptions. This suggests that the researcher and the teachers might not have
a shared understanding of what a misconception referred to. In other words, the
novice teachers appear to have a limited knowledge of misconceptions in the
sense of what the literature suggests. Experienced teachers’ recollections were
more in line with the researcher’s in this regard. Hence, experience appeared to

28
 have a positive impact on the teachers’ knowledge of specific pupils’
misconceptions.
b. None of the strategies the teachers used to address pupils’
misconceptions involved deep interaction with the misconceptions where pupils
were prompted to question the teachers’ explanations, explain and/or justify their
answers to the questions asked. The strategy used was mainly a question-and-
answer method where the questions asked were usually limited to low-level recall
questions, aimed at getting the correct answer from the pupils. The other popular
strategy used was direct teacher explanation. But the experienced teachers
specifically addressed misconceptions more than novice teachers. Hence, in
general, experience appeared to have a positive impact on one aspect of the
teachers’ practice in relation to pupils’ misconceptions.
c. A primary trend evident throughout the data analysis was the teachers’
lack of attention to pupils’ misconceptions at the planning stage and in the
classroom. Out of 14 lessons observed, only 2 teachers specifically planned to
address misconceptions in the topic taught and only 3 teachers were observed to
specifically address their pupils’ misconceptions. In contrast, out of 8 lessons
where the teachers recalled at least one pupil’s misconception or error, 7 teachers
believed they have partly or fully resolved the misconceptions. This disagreement
stemmed from the mismatch of misconceptions identified by both the researcher
and the teachers. Therefore, if both the pupils’ misconceptions and errors recalled
by the teachers were taken into account, teachers were observed to act on or react
to at least one of their recalled misconceptions or errors. The researcher and the
teachers were in full agreement with regards to the teachers’ enacted strategies
when this happened. This suggests that if the misconceptions identified by the
researcher were ‘visible’ to the teachers during teaching, there is a high
probability these misconceptions would have been addressed, albeit using non-
probing question-and-answer and direct teacher explanation strategies.

d. With regards to the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and attitude

towards pupils’ misconceptions (as identified in the earlier phase of the study) and

29
 the teachers’ actual teaching practice, there was no conclusive evidence to suggest
that the teachers’ beliefs translated into action during classroom interaction.
e. Two of the teachers with the intention of addressing pupils’
misconceptions as evidenced from their written lesson plans were observed to
practice their intention in the classroom. This suggests that teachers’ knowledge
of pupils’ misconceptions in a particular topic area before a lesson, together with
a specific intention to address them, may have a decisive effect on translating
beliefs into action. Perhaps these two factors helped make misconceptions visible
whilst teaching.
f. Analysis of teachers’ post-lesson reflection based on Sparks-Langer et
al’s framework shows that novice teachers were very similar to experienced
teachers in terms of the ability to apply educational principles and techniques
while reflecting on their teaching behaviour. Although it was expected that
experienced teachers would demonstrate contextual thinking more than novice
teachers, this turned out not to be so. In addition, there was no apparent
association between the teachers’ attitude towards misconceptions and their levels
of reflection. Furthermore, none of the teachers reflected on how social, cultural
and political diversity affected their instructional actions.

In conclusion, the problem of misconceptions, although widespread amongst

pupils as revealed by the extensive research in the area (which the majority of teachers
agree with), is specifically stated in the recent National Curriculum and Initial Teacher
Training Curriculum (which makes it an issue most teachers are aware or should be
aware of), which most teachers were able to articulate about (albeit in a sometimes
limited manner and with undifferentiated notion of deeply rooted misconceptions and
simple mistakes or errors), is largely invisible to teachers during the flow of teaching. In
other words, in practice the teachers usually either did not see them, or ignored them, and
only occasionally addressed them superficially without any deep interaction, regardless
of their attitudes towards misconceptions and how they reflect on their practice.
However, this research found that experience might have a positive influence on the

30
teachers’ knowledge of specific misconceptions and their practice with regards to
specifically addressing the misconceptions.

Implications and Recommendations for Teacher Training

This study has shown that although teachers have a rather limited awareness of pupils’
misconceptions they were able to engage in a discourse about misconceptions with the
appropriate stimulation. However their limited awareness manifests itself during teaching
practice and reflection on their practice. Teachers with limited awareness simply did not
plan ahead of teaching, hence did not see or just plain ignored these misconceptions
during teaching. For the participating teachers this happened despite the fact that the
teachers were aware that the researcher had come to observe how misconceptions were
handled in class. The question is now, how can the problem be highlighted as to make
itself visible to teachers during classroom interaction? How can teachers’ awareness and
priority towards addressing misconceptions be increased to the point where it prompted
teachers to act upon the problem by consciously integrating a specific strategy into their
lesson plan and carrying it out when appropriate? This study has at least reiterated that in
order for teachers to teach for conceptual change, at the very least, all of the following
conditions have to be met:

a. Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Teachers have to be aware of the problems of

pupils’ misconceptions, i.e., sufficiently able to articulate about the nature, origin
and ways of addressing pupils’ misconceptions, which may be informed by
research and/or experience and examples of pupils’ common misconceptions.
However, experience per se is not a very good teacher. Teachers can benefit from
relevant research in helping them make an informed decision regarding classroom
practice.

b. Attitude, Intention and Reflection: Teachers have to place teaching for

understanding amongst the most important goal of teaching and be able to
monitor and regulate their own knowledge via focused reflection on their practice.
With this attitude and intention, teachers will tend to reflect on specific area of
their practice so that what they believe is put into practice. For example, teachers

31
 may have the pedagogical content knowledge of the best representations for a
certain topic under a certain classroom context, such as knowing when to use a
number of different strategies and how to coordinate between strategies
depending on the teaching context, but may not put these knowledge into practice
if they are caught up with other pressures of the classroom life that they feel have
a higher priority or urgency than teaching for understanding. Focused reflection
will help them think through their practice in relation to the goals they have set,
and whether a reconsideration of their goals and/or their practice is in order.

c. Support: Have the necessary external support such as regular in-service training, a
supportive, ‘expert’ mentor for prospective and novice teachers, and the
appropriate tools to do the job effectively. .Although research has much to offer
teachers with regards to expanding teachers’ professional knowledge and
consequently improving practice, much of what is on offer is not accessible to
practicing teachers because they are usually caught up in the pressures of daily
classroom life. A regular, well-planned in-service training that is based upon
empirical findings, case studies and theoretical discussion can provide the avenue
for teachers to refresh, take stock, reflect and ‘be heard’ by voicing their own
concerns and limitations. This in turn can provide further insight to the teachers,
teacher educators and researchers into how teachers can help themselves to
improve their practices. At the end of the day teachers may be able to ‘take away’
knowledge and skills that have been negotiated collaboratively and hence can
usefully be adopted or adapted to their individual needs. It is imperative that
prospective teachers are trained in a teacher education programme that
emphasises the importance of reflecting practically and critically, and allows
students to focus on their specific 'problem areas' in order to improve their
professional practice. In addition, teachers usually teach the way they were taught.
Therefore, if research has shown that conceptual change teaching approaches are
potentially superior to traditional practices in promoting scientific understanding
amongst pupils, then modeling of the approaches by teacher educators is essential.
Of course, the underlying assumption is that teacher educators are the experts who

32
 can provide the link between researchers (who may not have the teaching
experience themselves) and teachers. This means that close collaboration between
teachers, teacher educators and researchers could have a significant impact on
what happens in the classroom.

Acknowledgement

Many thanks to Professor Julian Williams of The University of Manchester who provided
ongoing advice and support in all aspects of the preparation of the report.

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 Appendix A
Q sample with Rounded Factor Scores

No Statement Score
F1 F2 F3
1 Misconceptions are conceptions that differ from scientific ones. -2 -1 2
2 Not all students’ preconceptions are misconceptions. 0 2 3
3 Misconceptions do not interfere with students’ development of scientific 0 -3 -3
understandings.
4 Misconceptions can play a productive role in learning a science concept. 3 1 1
5 Proficiency in solving quantitative problems is an indication of the absence of -3 -2 -1
misconceptions.
6 Many students tend to finish college physics courses with the same misconceptions -1 -1 0
with which they began.
7 Misconceptions can result from misinterpretation of analogies. 2 3 3
8 Misconceptions are widespread, occurring at all ages and educational levels. 1 3 0
9 Misconceptions are internally consistent and coherent. -1 -1 -3
10 Physics classroom experience does eliminate misconceptions. -2 0 2
11 The same misconception may arise in some contexts but not in others. 1 0 1
12 Misconceptions can be viewed as useful raw material out of which students can 2 1 2
construct more sophisticated understandings of physics.
13 Some misconceptions are easily removed in the course of instruction. -1 2 3
14 Misconceptions can occur in a student’s understanding of the scientific method. 1 0 2
15 Misconceptions reflect a basic lack of knowledge. -1 1 -2
16 Physics teachers exhibit some misconceptions and may be passing down their 2 3 1
misconceptions to their students.
17 Physics textbooks contain misconceptions.. 0 3 0
18 Misconceptions result from the lack of reasoning abilities. -2 -2 0
19 Illustrating relationships between concepts by drawing lines linking keywords is a 2 -1 3
useful tool for discovering and confronting students’ misconceptions.
20 Resolving misconceptions requires that learners be both aware of the misconception 3 1 -2
and dissatisfied with it.
21 Student misconceptions should not be replaced by appropriate conceptions. -2 -3 -3
22 Lectures in conventional physics classrooms can eliminate misconceptions.. -3 0 -1
23 A common misconception in mechanics is that if an object is at rest it cannot be 0 -2 1
accelerating.
24 The conventional physics laboratory is an effective strategy for dealing with -1 1 1
students’ misconceptions.
25 Historical approaches to teaching physics can help students see their understanding 0 2 0
of physics to just be incomplete or immature as opposed to wrong.
26 Students’ verbalization of their understanding of a physics concept can help them 3 0 3
clarify their misconceptions.
27 Casting misconceptions as mistakes is too narrow a view of their role in learning. 3 2 0
28 Replacing misconceptions is not always desirable. -3 -3 -1
29 Instruction that confronts misconceptions is misguided. 1 -3 -2
30 Some misconceptions may be helpful when a student attempts to handle day-to-day 2 -1 0
experiences.
31 Misconceptions are formed from spontaneous reasoning in an unfamiliar situation. 0 1 -1

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 Appendix A: Continue
No Statement Score
F1 F2 F3
32 Viewing misconceptions as flawed ideas to be rejected conflicts with the basic 1 0 0
premise of constructivism: that students build more advanced knowledge from prior
understandings.
33 Misconceptions can be both flawed and productive, depending on the problem that 2 -1 1
is faced.
34 Literal replacement of misconceptions with new scientific knowledge oversimplifies 1 1 -1
the changes involved in learning physics.
35 Promoting multiple ways of looking at a problem is more fruitful than confronting 3 0 0
and replacing a misconception.
36 I regularly search for innovative teaching strategies to effectively handle students’ 1 2 2
misconceptions in class.
37 In depth physics knowledge rather than pedagogical knowledge is required to -2 0 1
effectively deal with students’ misconceptions.
38 Teachers receive enough exposure during their initial training to handle -3 -2 -3
misconceptions effectively.
39 What is considered as a misconception should be regarded as an alternative or a 0 -2 -3
different way of looking at a phenomenon.
40 Research findings on misconceptions have a direct impact on my teaching practices 0 1 -1
41 Misconceptions are stable and emerge in students’ reasoning across different -1 0 -2
contexts.
42 “Motion implies a force” is a common misconception among students learning 0 3 2
Newtonian physics.
43 Misconceptions cannot act as a basis for learning scientific concepts because they -3 2 -2
are flawed.
44 An alternative conception is the same as a misconception. -2 -3 -1
45 Students never really let go of their misconceptions and these remain part of their -1 -2 -3
conceptual repertoire throughout their lives.
46 Persistent misconceptions are due to poor physics teaching that takes place in 1 2 -1
schools.
47 The physics curricula used in most schools today do not help remedy the problem of -1 -2 1
persistent misconceptions amongst students.
48 Misconceptions tend to get resolved with further exposure and experience even 2 -1 0
without challenging them explicitly.
49 Emphasis on numerical problem solving during teaching can obscure 0 0 2
misconceptions that students possess.
50 Misconception as a term tends to devalue students’ prior knowledge. -2 -1 -2

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 Appendix B
Science Classroom Observation Rubric (SCOR)

Category I: Facilitating the learning process from a constructivist perspective

A. Teacher as a facilitator
5 Students are responsible for their own learning experience. Teacher
facilitates the learning process. Teacher-student experience is a
partnership.

3 Students are not always responsible for their own learning experience.
Teacher directs the students more than facilitates the learning process.
(Teacher-student learning experience is more teacher-centered than
student centered)

1 Students are not responsible for their own learning experience. Teacher
directs the learning process. (Teacher-student learning experience is
completely teacher-centered, i.e. teacher lectures or demonstrates and
never interacts with students)

B. Student Engagement in activities

5 Students are actively engaged in initiating examples, asking questions, and

suggesting and implementing activities throughout the lesson.

3 Students are partially engaged in initiating examples and asking questions

at times during the lesson.

1 Students are almost never engaged in initiating examples and asking

questions during the lesson.

C. Student engagement in experience

5 Students are actively engaged in experiences (physically and/or mentally)

3 Students are moderately engaged in experiences.

1 Students are seldom engaged in experiences.

D. Novelty

5 Novelty, newness, discrepancy, or curiosity are used consistently to motivate

learning.

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 3 Novelty, newness, discrepancy, or curiosity are used sometimes to
motivate learning.

1 Novelty, newness, discrepancy, or curiosity are used occasionally or not at

all to motivate learning.
E. Textbook dependency

5 Teacher does not depend on the text to present the lesson. Teacher and
students adapt or develop own content materials fro their needs.

3 Teacher does depend somewhat on the text to present the lesson. Teacher
and students make some modifications.

1 Teacher does depend solely on the text to present the lesson. Teacher
makes no modifications with students.

Category II: Content-Specific Pedagogy (Pedagogy related to student understanding)

F. Student conceptual understanding

5 The lesson focuses on activities that relate to student understanding of

concepts.

3 Most of the time the lesson focuses on activities that relate to student
understanding of concepts.

1 Much of the time the lesson focuses on activities that do not relate to
student understanding of concepts.

G. Student relevance

5 Student relevance is always a focus and the lesson relates to student

experiences outside the classroom.

3 Student relevance is always a focus.

1 Student relevance is not a focus.

H. Variation in teaching methods

5 During the lesson the teacher appropriately varies methods to facilitate

student conceptual understanding; i.e., discussion, questions,
brainstorming, experiments, log reports, student presentations, lecture,
demonstration, etc.

40
 3 During the lesson the teacher sometimes varies methods to demonstrate
the content: i.e., discussion, questions, brainstorming, experiments, log
reports, student presentations, lecture, demonstration, etc.

1 During the lesson the teacher uses only one method to demonstrate the
content; i.e., discussion, questions, brainstorming, experiments, log
reports, student presentations, lecture, demonstration, etc.

I. Higher order thinking skills

5 Teacher consistently moves students through different cognitive levels to

reach higher order thinking skills.

3 Teacher sometimes moves students through different cognitive levels to

reach higher order student thinking.

1 Teacher does not move students through different cognitive levels to reach
higher order student thinking.

J. Integration of content and process skills

5 Content and process skills are integrated.

3 Content and process skills are not integrated.

1 Content is taught without process or process without content.

K. Connection of content and evidence

5 Concepts are connected to the evidence.

3 Concepts are partially connected to evidence.

1 Concepts are not connected to evidence.

Category III: Context-specific pedagogy

L. Resolution of misconception

5 As student misconceptions become apparent, the teacher facilitates student

efforts to resolve them by gathering evidence, participating in discussion
with students, or fostering discussion among students.

3 As student misconceptions become apparent, the teacher usually facilitates

student efforts to resolve them by gathering evidence, participating in
discussion with students, or fostering discussion among students.

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 1 As student misconceptions become apparent, the teacher does not facilitate
student efforts to resolve them by gathering evidence, participating in
discussion with students, or fostering discussion among students.

M. Teacher-student relationship

5 Teacher consistently demonstrates good interpersonal relations with

students. No bias is made regarding: ethnicity, gender, multi-cultural
diversity, and special education classifications.

3 Teacher does not consistently demonstrate good interpersonal relations

with students most of the time. On occasion, some bias is made regarding:
ethnicity, gender, multi-cultural diversity, and special education
classifications.

1 Teacher does not consistently demonstrate good interpersonal relations

with students most of the time. There is bias regarding: ethnicity, gender,
multi-cultural diversity, and special education classifications.

N. Modifications for student understanding

5 Teacher has continuous awareness of his/her student understanding and

modifies the lesson when necessary.

3 Teacher has a general awareness of his/her student understanding and

occasionally modifies the lesson when necessary.

1 Teacher has little or no awareness of student understanding and does not

modify the lesson when it is appropriate.

Category IV: Content-knowledge (Knowledge of subject matter)

O. Use of exemplars

5 Exemplars and metaphors (verbal, visual, and physical) are frequently

used and are accurate and relevant throughout the lesson.

3 Exemplars and metaphors (verbal, visual, and physical) are sometimes

used and are accurate and relevant some of the time.

1 Exemplars and metaphors are rarely used and are not accurate and
relevant.

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P. Coherent science experience/lesson

5 Concepts, generalizations, and skills are integrated coherently throughout

the experience (lesson)

3 Concepts, generalizations, and skills are not always integrated as a

coherent organization of events throughout the experience (lesson).

1 Concepts, generalizations, and skills are not integrated and lack coherency
throughout the experience (lesson)

Q. Balance between depth and comprehensiveness

5 Content has an appropriate balance between in-depth and comprehensive

coverage.

3 Lesson does not have appropriate balance between depth and

comprehensive much of the time (Lesson has too much depth for the topic
and too little coverage, or lesson has too much coverage and too little
depth)

1 Content is shallow, incomplete, or lacking. (Lesson has neither depth or

breadth)

R. Accurate content

5 Content is always evident and always accurate.

3 Content is usually evident and mostly accurate.

1 Content is missing or inaccurate.

43