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What to do about science “misconceptions”

Article in Science Education September 1990

DOI: 10.1002/sce.3730740504

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ISSUES AND TRENDS

Glen S. Aikenhead, Section Editor

What to Do About Science

“Misconceptions”

DANIEL GIL-PEREZ and JAIME CARRASCOSA

University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

During the last decade there has been an increasing interest in science
misconceptions. Research in this domain has been trying to answer questions such
as which misconceptions occur, what is their origin, how extensive are they and, of
course, what can we do about them?. We intend to review, in this article, the
different answers given to the last question, in order to clarify the implications of
this research in the teaching/learning process.

Nothing to do?
Misconceptions-at least those most deeply rooted-are associated with intuitive
ideas or preconceptions acquired prior to school learning (Driver, 1986), and for
some authors (Preece, 1984), these ideas are not just learned from experience but
“built into the hardware of the brain . . . The Kantian hypothesis-that many of
the templates by which we structure the world are innate rather than constructed-
provides a parsimonious explanation of much that is known about children's science.
In particular, the persistence of intuitive views in the face of the contrary teaching
and their widespread occurrence would be natural consequences of their innate
basis. Furthermore, the existence of an innate triggering hierarchy would account
for the parallel between ontogenesis and phylogenesis.”
If we accept Preece's hypothesis, we would almost give up trying to change the
intuitive ideas of our pupils. But how can this hypothesis explain the construction
of classical physics against the preclassical view of the world and, how can it
explain that, after all, a substantial percentage of pupils manage to learn significantly
Newtons' mechanics? These and other questions are not easily answered by the
innate hypothesis, which does not seem to be as parsimonious as Preece asserts.

Science Education 74(5): 531-540 (1990)

0 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC oO36-8326 / 90 I05053 I - 1 0$O4.00
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532 GIL-PEREZ AND CARRASCOSA

Is It Necessary to Bother about Misconceptions?

A second and also quite simple answer to what to do about science
misconceptions. has been
least that
is the . . we of
opinion dosome
not need to bother(such
researchers aboutasthem. This at
McClelland
(1984)) who support ideas which are completely opposed to those of Preece
(1984). McClelland affirms that pupils have not alternative conceptual frameworks:
the real reason for their misconceptions is ;I "strategic inattention" when they are
forced to answer questions on physical phenomena which are not salient enough
for them. But again facts are against such simple answer: it is true that young
pupils give very quick answers, without paying too much attention; the trouble is
that misconceptions do not affect only children: some of these errors-particularly
those in the domain of mechanics-are com mitted also by university students.
Figure 1 gives the percentage of incorrect answers versus students' age, for two
questions on the well-known preconception which associates force and movement
(Viennot 1976; Clement, 1982; Watts, 1983; McDermott. 1984; Minstrell, 1984;
Halloun & Hestenes, 1985). As we can see, the percentage of wrong answers
remains almost constant. Even more, in a study involving over 100 secondary
school physics teachers (Furio & Gil, 1983; Carrascosa 1087). more than 60%
gave an incorrect answer to one or more of the following true or false propositions:

1. If the resultant force on a body is zero, the body will be at rest

2. The movement of a body always takes place in the direction of the resultant
force.

100

80

60

40

twenty

P
fifteen 17 18 twenty
AGE
Figure 1. Percentage of incorrect answers to mechanic questions versus students' age (v forces on
a body going upwards (Vicnnot, 1976), forces and the direction of movement (Carrascosa, 1987)).
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SCIENCE “MISCONCEPTIONS” 533

3. If the velocity of a body is zero at a given instant, the resultant force at this
instant must be zero as well.
The questionnaire contained 7 other items and all the answers to these similarly
revealed the persistence of a “commonsense physics.” The existence of deeply
rooted preconceptions and the difficulty of their substitutions by scientific concepts
can thus neither be denied nor interpreted as a result of strategic inattention on the
part of children . We really need, in conclusion, to bother about misconceptions.

Science Learning as a Conceptual Change

We could summarize the preceding section by saying that there is no simple
answer to “what to do about science misconceptions.” In fact, one of the most
important outcomes of research on science misconceptions has been, undoubtedly,
a better understanding of science learning difficulties and the awareness of the
need for profound changes in the teachingilearning process, to improve mean ingful
learning, Particularly important in this sense have been the proposals of conceptual
change strategies (Hewson 1981; Posner, Strike, Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982),
based on the assumption that many difficulties in science learning have their origin
in the knowl edge pupils have acquired prior to instruction and in the ignorance of
this knowledge by teachers.

The idea of science learning as a process of knowledge construction, starting

necessarily from prior knowledge, appears, more or less explicitly in recent
propositions of many authors (Posner et al. 1982; Gil 1983; Osborne & Wittrock,
1983; Driver, 1985 ; Novak, 1987). We could speak of the emergence of a
constructivist science learning model which integrates recent research on science
education with many other contributions (Bachelard, Kelly, Piaget, Vygotsky). As
Novak (1986) points out: “The exciting thing that is happening now is that we are
beginning to do the kind of research and instruction at innovation that builds on our
new psychological and epistemological insights and is leading to promising new
educational
important interplay programs. We
. . .are moving
between towards
thinking research
and feeling that
and shows the
the parallels
between the construction of meaning by learners and that done by creative
mathematicians” and-we can add-scientists.

But, is this conceptual change possible? Can pupils construct scientific knowledge
which takes the place of their intuitive preconceptions? Some experimental results
(Hewson and Hewson 1984) seem to suggest that an instructional strategy based
on the model of conceptual change causes a much better acquisition of scientific
conceptions than the usual mere transmission/reception of knowledge. Never the
less, other authors (Fredette & Lochhead, 1981; Shuell, 1987) stress that conceptual
change is often very difficult, even when prior conceptions are explicitly considered.
We touch here an essential point: can we really do something to improve mean
ingful learning of science and to remove commonsense erroneous conceptions'! A
positive answer to this question may be obtained by looking more closely at the
parallels between the construction of meaning by learners and the work carried out
by scientists.
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534 GIL-PEREZ AND CARRASCOSA

Science Learning as Conceptual and Methodological Change

As we have already mentioned, the importance of pupils' conceptual frameworks
and the need for orienting learning as 3 conceptual change can be based on the
existence of a certain isomorphism between a scientific research process and
mean ingful science learning (Piaget, 1974; Posner et al . al., 1982; Gil, 1983;
Saltiel & Viennat, 1985; Novak, 1987). One can understand, from this point of view,
the difficulties in bringing about a deep conceptual change, since this can be
equivalent to what historically represents a scientific revolution. Moreover, this
isomorphism enables us to predict that, in order to produce the conceptual change,
it is not enough to take into account pupils' preconceptions. Indeed, the resemblance
between pupils' intuitive ideas and preclassical conceptions cannot be accidental
but must be the consequence of the same way of approaching problems. And it is
easy to show that both children and preclassical works on science, approach
problem lems in a very similar way which we have called the “methodology of superficiality”
(Gil & Carrascosa, 1985). This methodology consists of common sense evidence,
based only on qualitative appearances and is socially reinforced (Solomon, 1987).
That is the way of thinking which led Aristotle to write (in De Caelo): “A given weight
covers a certain distance in a given time; A bigger weight covers the same distance
in less time, the times being in inverse proportions to the weights. So, if one weight
is double the other, it will take half the time for a given movement.”
And this is, in our opinion, the methodology which leads pupils, and even some
university students to think that “a body of twice the mass of another falls a given
distance in half the time.”
We have recently studied in detail how pupils' (and teachers') thinking respond
to this commonsense approach, how they give answers, with full confidence, which
are simply generalizations of uncontrolled “evidence.” Particularly, we have shown
that high school pupils, university students, and teachers in training and in service,
express statements like “a body always moves in the direction of the resultant
force” with a very high degree of confidence, even when they are warned as to how
easy it is to make mistakes about these apparently simple questions.
We have also measured the time used in answering these questions: the answers
were almost immediate (especially those of teachers!) showing an evident lack of
reflection.
We could summarize by saying that alternative frameworks are associated-as
common sense physics was-with a methodology characterized by certainty, by
absence of doubts or consideration of possible alternative solutions, by quick and
very confident answers based on “common sense evidence” and by lack of
consistency in the analysis of different situations (Minstrel1 1982; Whitaker 1983:
Halloun & Hestenes, 1985; Hewson 1985; Champagne, Gunstone, & Klopfer 1985).
This is the reason why we think that a conceptual change is not possible without
a methodological change. In fact, the common sense paradigm could only be over
whelmed thanks to a new methodology which combines the creativity of divergent
thinking and the rigor of hypotheses-checking through experiments under trolled
conditions. Historically, this methodological change, as we know, was not at all an
easy one, and it is quite logical to think that the same will happen with pupils.

This association of the conceptual and methodological change is also coherent

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SCIENCE “MISCONCEPTIONS” 535

with Gowin's Vee heuristics (Gowin, 1981). Nevertheless, the proposals of

conceptual change do not pay sufficient attention to the methodological and
epistemological aspects, with very few exceptions (Hewson, 1985; Hashweh,
1986). In our opinion more explicit attention should be necessary since science
teaching continues to be centered on declarative knowledge (knowing “what”) and
forgets the procedural type (knowing “how”). On the other hand, as Saltiel and
Viennot (1985) pointed out, there is not a stage in the historical development of
Mechanics ideas which fits “point by point” the pupils' intuitive conceptions: the
main simi larity lies in the difficulties that both must face. And these difficulties are,
above all, of a methodological nature. In a recent article, Hashweh (1986), has
sustained a very similar thesis, speaking of what he calls “commonsense
epistemology and methodology” with a very close meaning to what we have called
methodology of superficiality.
It seems essential, then, to take into account the links between commonsense
ideas and commonsense methodology, or in other words, to stress the necessity
of associating the conceptual change to a methodological one, in order to make
possible the construction of scientific knowledge, This is to say, the meaningful
learning of science.
It is necessary to stress that we are not advocating a “process” or a “discovery”
learning approach. As it has been repeatedly shown (Ausubel, 1978; Gil, 1983;
Hodson, 1985; Miller & Driver, 1987), those orientations give a wrong idea of
scientific knowledge construction, ignoring, in particular, the importance of previous
knowledge. On the contrary, we emphasize that methodological and conceptual
aspects are inseparable. In this sense we shall now try to justify the argument that
physics learning, and more precisely mechanics, can be an ideal way for
overcoming the commonsense methodology. That is, we insist, a most important
question since, without this methodological change, pupils cannot undertake a
meaningful acquisition of scientific knowledge.

From Common Sense Physics to Classical Mechanics

Why should mechanics be a "golden way" to initiate the methodological change?
The answer to this question derives from the very meaning of what we have called
a methodological change: this implies first of all, to lose confidence in what seems
evident, to doubt about what we believed to be commonsense evidence, to start
imagining other possibilities- passing from certainty to hypotheses thinking-and, at
the same time, trying to contrast the different assumptions in controlled conditions.

But in order to lose certainty in commonsense evidences it is necessary to see

that what we are considering most certain can be wrong. It is necessary to see that
our ordinary way of thinking can lead to error. And it is very precisely in mechanics
that commonsense seems to give a most coherent view. This is why the preclassical
paradigm is called “commonsense physics” (Holton, Rutherford, & Watson, 1982).
It is in mechanics too that pupils have the most coherent and rooted alternative
framework. We have already referred to a study we have done which consisted of
posing questions to pupils about different preconceptions that have been pointed
out in the literature, asking them to express their confidence in the answers. results
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536 GIL-PEREZ AND CARRASCOSA

show that most of the wrong answers on mechanics are given with a high degree
of confidence, which even increases with the age of students (Fig. 2). It is also in
Mechanics where preconceptions are less affected by instruction (Fig. 3) and
pupils (and teachers!) get most upset when they find out that what they thought of
as obviously correct is wrong. So, the conflict which can lead to the methodological
change. is stronger in mechanics than in any other domain: it is not by chance
that the rise of scientific methodology is historically associated with the study of
me mechanical movement and that mechanics has been the first science in the
modern sense of the word: the struggle between the preclassical paradigm and
the new ideas of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, etc. is the history of a conceptual
and methodological change. This struggle must be reproduced in our pupils, and
beforehand, of course, in teachers in training.
Physics and, more precisely mechanics, then appears as a particularly suitable
domain in which to initiate conceptual and methodological change and give pupils
the sense of science. Nevertheless, we must signal the danger of attempting to
bring about this methodological change too soon: children need to develop their
common sense strategies of thinking-valid in many situations (Pope & Keen, 1981)-
just as, historically speaking, the scientific revolution was preceded by a long
period of “prescientific” work (Gil, 1986).
Naturally, teaching mechanics is not sufficient to attain this methodological
change. In fact, mechanics have been taught for a long time without producing any

100

80

60

40

twenty

- >
fifteen 17 18 twenty
AGE

Figure 2. Percentage of incorrect answers to mechanical questions (given with a very high degree of
confidence). versus students' age (v forces on a body going upwards (Viennot. 1976). forces and
the direction of movement (Carrascosa. 1987)).
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SCIENCE ”MISCONCEPTIONS” 537

Mechanical Questions Chemical Questions

TO.
TO

% %

100
100

80
80

60

40

v forces on a body going upwards (VieMOt 1976) conservation of mass (Carrascosa 1987)
Forces and the direction of movement (Carrascosa 1987) +nature of gases (Brook et al 1983)

Figure 3. Percentage of incorrect answers to questions about well-known preconceptions. versus students'
age.

methodological or conceptual change. The reason can be found in the fact that,
as a recent analysis of current problems with school science in the United States
has shown (Yager and Penick, 1983), “most science courses do not include a
single experiment where students can identify and define a problem, propose
procedures, collect and interpret results or make any decisions.”
This situation is quite similar in other countries (Gil, 1983; Garrett, 1987) and it
is even worse regarding paper and pencil problem-solving, the other activity
which, together with practical work, is considered a suitable way to develop sci
entific skills and attitudes. Research has shown that the teaching of problem-
solving typically lacks the main characteristics of scientific work: teachers solve
problems in a linear way, without looking for alternative strategies and even
without any analysis of results (Gil and Martinez-Torregrosa, 1983, 1984). .
To produce the conceptual and methodological change, we insist, it is necessary
to give research characteristics to the learning process, or, in other words, it is
necessary to reorient the learning process as the construction of scientific knowl
edge.
On the other hand, such subjects as mechanics are usually considered as
“abstract and purely formal,” with no interest for pupils. This criticism is correct if
it refers to the usual way of teaching these subjects, but not if it concerns the
subjects themselves: how could it be accepted that the raising of classical
mechanics, for instance, is an “abstract and purely formal” domain? Reading
some of Galileo's texts is surely enough to realize how full of real adventures the
development of science can be. We can even find persecutions and sentences and, above all, a
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538 GIL-PEREZ AND CARRASCOSA

passionate and impassioned struggle against dogmatism, for freedom of thought

and knowledge.
The question now is how to recapture these historical aspects, these interactions
between science and society, breaking with a long tradition engaged in transforming
science teaching in a mere dogmatic transmission of “pure” knowledge. This
orientation of science teaching, not only has a high motivational potential but gives
a more accurate view of scientific development. Moreover it can help to avoid the
increasing social rejection of scientific activities, due to destruction of environment,
the arms race, and so on. Discussions of the social role of science and the myth
of scientific neutrality, can help to return to science learning the vitality and interest
of scientific development itself (Aikenhead, 1985).
But science learning can also, and must be, an adventure in a deeper sense.
The adventure of facing up to open problems, finding (or not!) fruitful ways of
solution, knowing that one's own thinking resembles that of scientists (including
their mis takes!). In our opinion, even if there is still very much to research in this
domain, science learning conceived as an open and creative activity, with the
characters of scientific work, can awaken a real interest in science.
Furthermore, this constructivist approach has deep implications in curriculum
development and teachers' work: as Driver and Oldham (1986) assert, this means
that the curriculum must not be seen “as a body of knowledge or skills but as the
program of activities from which such knowledge or skills can possibly be acquired
or constructed.” Elaborating these programs of activities is, naturally, a research
task, and this can also give the character of an open and creative activity to the
teachers' work. So the constructivist model of science learning must be understood
as a conceptual, methodological . . .and attitudinal
teachers. Thischange, both
model is justfor pupils and
beginning to
emerge but has already opened some perspectives in the treatment of science
misconceptions together with other important problems of science learning. In
fact, this research is no longer centered on misconceptions, but in the role played
by intuitive ideas and methodology in the construction of scientific knowledge.

Conclusion
We could summarize this analysis of the different answers given-explicitly or
implicitly-to the question: what can be done about science misconceptions, saying
that there is not much to do if we do not take into account, at the same time arzd
very explicitly , the associated commonsense methodology. In other words,
science learning should be oriented, coherently with the historical process, as a
conceptual and methodological change in a constructivist perspective.

Acknowledgment
The authors wish to thank Dr. D. Satterly and Dr. R. Garrett from the School of Education
of the University of Bristol for help with the preparation of this article.
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SCIENCE “MISCONCEPTIONS” 539

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Accepted for publication 10 July 1989

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