GLPA 2022 Challenging Misconceptions

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Please find below some useful references to accompany this talk, which was given at the Great Lakes Planetarium Association Conference, 21 October 2022. Do get in touch if there was anything else in the talk for which you would like references.

If you would like me to run education research training for your organisation on this or other topics, find information about training options here.


Five point plan for challenging misconceptions

As presented in the talk:

  1. State the conception / give positive information (do not introduce conflict at this point)

  2. Acknowledge the misconception (don’t dwell on it, and don’t let them construct arguments FOR the misconception)

  3. Refute the misconception (break it down, focus on errors, use their prior knowledge, avoid unnecessary conflict)

  4. Construct the conception (the learner needs to construct a complex model, not just memorise surface features. Link it to prior knowledge/memory where possible)

  5. Use the conception (raise its status vs the misconception by practicing its use and showing the brain that it is useful)

The valient Science Communicator makes battle with the great Misconception beast. PIck your target, one attack at a time. Aim for the gaps in its armour. Avoid side-conflicts, and use the learners’ own weapons against it. Image by the Dall-E 2 AI image generator.

Top recommendationS:

The Debunking Handbook (pdf, many languages available)

Accessible overview written in 2020 by a team of 22 scholars, with 11 pages of content. Discussing approaches for debunking misinformation, topics including vaccine safety and climate change.

How to Help Students Overcome Misconceptions (web article)

Annette Taylor, 2017, The Learning Scientists. This is a short, accessilble and well-written article aimed at teachers. It was written a few months before the 2017 Chan meta-analysis was published.

Other useful/interesting references:

A Private Universe (webpage, video, 1987)

An oldie but a goodie! Great for exposing just how important and powerful astronomy misconceptions are. Especially good for anyone who is thinking about misconceptions for the first time. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Science Education Department, 1987.

Understanding Misconceptions: Teaching and Learning in Middle-School Science (pdf)

An accessilbly-written research paper showing that teacher awareness of misconceptions improves student results. Philip Sadler was involved in A Private Universe. Sadler & Sonnert, 2016, The American Educator.

Debunking: A Meta-Analysis of the Psychological Efficacy of Messages Countering Misinformation (pdf)

Acknowledging the difficulty of the task, and picks out the actionable items that are best supported by evidence. This advice is primarily aimed at editors and policy-makers. Chan et al., 2017, Psychological Science.

The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction (pdf)

Discusses what makes information feel true, and also how misconceptions can come back to life after ‘successful’ debunking. Ecker at al., 2022, Nature Reviews.

Searching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design Considerations (pdf)

Reassurance for anyone worried about the backfire effect (ie that attempts at debunking will reinforce misconceptions). Briony Swire-Thompson et al, 2020, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.

Inhibition and Conceptual Learning in Science: a Review of Studies (pdf)

Why misconceptions rise from the grave: how the brain holds both conflicting models, inhibiting one. Mason & Zaccoletti, 2021, Educational Psychology Review, 2021.

Do Naïve Theories Ever Go Away? Using Brain and Behavior to Understand Changes in Concepts (pdf)

Neuroscience paper, showing that misconceptions lead to conflicting information being flagged as erroneous, hampering learning. They use brain scans to observe physics misconceptions persisting in the minds of students who have successfully learned the correct model. Dunbar & Fuselsang, 2007, Thinking with Data.

And finally …

Effects of Sugar Consumption on Human Behavior and Performance (pdf)

Good fully-referenced overview of the topic, reporting on the outcomes of many different studies. Flora and Polenick, 2013, The Psychological Record.

Effects of Diets High in Sucrose or Aspartame on The Behavior and Cognitive Performance of Children (pdf)

Double-blind clinical trial showing no effect of a sugary diet on any of 39 behavioral and cognitive variables. Subjects included a group of pre-school children (3-5yr), and a cohort aged 6-10yr who were identified by parents as ‘sugar sensitive’. Wolraich et al., 1994.

Every learning journey takes many steps. Even if you only have time to show them the stairs, then your work has been worthwhile. Image by the Dall-E 2 Artificial Intelligence at https://openai.com/dall-e-2/ .