The dominant educational philosophy that explains much about how we learn is called constructivism.  This is the notion that learners add any new understanding by linking new ideas to what they already know. This prior knowledge can support or block future learning so it is vital that educators pay close attention not just to what they want to teach but to what their students already have in mind.

For instance, consider the following two questions.

True or false?    Moon phases are caused when the Earth casts a shadow on the moon.
True or false?    Seasons occur because the sun is closer to the earth in the summer.

The answer to both of these questions is "false," but many people believe otherwise. It is easy to imagine that the impact of science lessons targeting either on these phenomena will be enhanced if the learner's prior knowledge is accurate but greatly impeded if the student’s foundational ideas are faulty or otherwise unclear.  Studies have shown that many individuals have significant science misconceptions but we also know that teachers rarely use these prior conceptions in the design and implementation of instruction. Teachers are either unaware of the alternative views that students possess, do not know how to address them in designing instruction or simply assume that sharing the more scientifically accurate view with students will cause them to replace what they already know. 

For centuries, this last notion has been the basic instructional paradigm.  However, it is more likely that when students encounter something at odds with what they already "know," conflict may result.  This conflict can block or seriously disrupt learning; sometimes resulting in having the learner reject what is offered as new knowledge or in creating some inappropriate blend of the learners’ view with the scientifically acceptable position.   Constructivism suggests that by considering the range of prior ideas held by students, instruction might best be considered “teaching for conceptual change” or “changing minds rather than filling minds.” 

To cite just one example, suppose a biology student believes that evolution occurs because organisms need to change.  National studies have shown that many believe that this to be the case. This faulty notion would negatively impact the learner’s entire view of evolution and the underlying science of genetics since it implies a link between desires and needs and the genetic nature of the organism. Of course, there is no such link between what an organism needs and what it has as its genetic heritage.  The genetic structure simply does not change in a response to desire no matter how useful such a change would be.  Evolution, in turn, works on the organisms’ actual genetic structure.  If teachers design instruction with this misconception in mind, they will likely be far more successful in sharing a scientifically valid understanding of genetics and its role in evolution.  The lesson, in turn, becomes one of conceptual change rather than simple information transmission because the teacher must correct a prior misunderstanding while assisting the learners gain valid scientific information.

Conceptual change teaching requires that teachers’ know what views students already possess and incorporate this understanding into instructional designs.  Unfortunately, there has been no effective way for teachers to access information about students’ prior knowledge.  The Misconception Synthesis Project (MSP) was developed to provide a mechanism by which educators can access the wide range of studies already conducted to reveal students’ science misconceptions and then incorporate knowledge of this prior understanding into instruction.

As presently designed, the Misconception Synthesis Project is an interactive database that classroom teachers, textbook authors and scholars can use to explore the misconceptions that students of various ages and in various science disciplines are likely to possess. This information can then be used in conceptual change teaching strategies.

We now have available a “beta” version of a searchable web-resident database of science misconceptions gleaned from journal articles, dissertations and technical reports, now roughly linked to other relevant fields, such as science content standards, student age/grade, etc.  Although much has been written about the use of misconceptions in instruction and some print-based compendia of such misconceptions have been published, we believe that this is the first working prototype of a misconception database available.  When fully functional and considerably more comprehensive, it will play an important role in supporting science instruction for anyone with access to the World Wide Web.

Currently there are approximately 150 individual misconceptions citations targeting a variety of natural science topics. These misconception studies may be searched using a combination of science key terms and/or the age of the individuals in the study population through an easy-to-use interface to locate information of students' naive conceptions. For instance, if a teacher is designing an astronomy lesson for fifth grade students, they may simply search "astronomy" and "fifth grade" or may conduct a broader search of "physical science" for "all learners." Users of this second search strategy will uncover more studies but will also gain a deeper understanding of what faulty notions may be encountered in instruction. As the database grows it will become increasingly more useful both to teachers and as a research tool. For instance, even though hundreds of studies have been conducted, we have no clear idea what areas of science still have yet to be explored from a misconception perspective. The MSP database will clarify this situation.

You will be welcome to “test drive” the Misconception Database but please recognize that its contents will be incomplete and interface will be undergoing field testing.  Any suggestions that you would like to offer regarding either the contents or the interface would be greatly appreciated. 

Misconception Synthesis Project Website

http://rsoeweb2.usc.edu/TE/Misconception/index.html

User Name (Insert Your Last Name Here)                    Password (trojan)

Note; as educators and scholars have examined the existing MSP website, we have taken note of the nature of suggestions that might be made to enhance future versions of the site.  Needless to say, the site presently features only a fraction of the data now available, but other suggestions exist for making improvements including: 

• Linking the “hits” to the original article via hyperlink
• Linking the search to a site where lessons or activities that address the particular misconceptions can be downloaded
• Including search options such as age/grade level, subject matter, activity or lecture
• Searching options in languages other than English
• Providing the ability to search for multiple criteria at one (i.e. all age groups or several topics within a discipline)
• Using a key word search that would allow the user to jump straight to the data for a specific topic area (such as photosynthesis) thus permitting quicker searches
• Including links that discuss the rationale for addressing students’ prior conceptions (a tutorial for addressing misconceptions)
• Including a discussion board in which teachers could write in with their questions and/or share experiences with others
• More lengthy descriptions of the misconception
• A Help menu / feature
• Adding subheadings to the major headings (such as density, buoyancy and organic under “chemistry”)
• Providing a page that lists all misconceptions in a particular content area
• Adding an “Article save” feature that would enable users to keep interesting articles in a buffer (for later check out or printing) while continuing to search
• Including a “search in text feature” so that the user would be able to search within articles and not just rely on the title
• Searching on a short summary of the article rather than the title
• Including a “submit” feature that would enable users to add new misconceptions to the data base (perhaps a wizard could guide users in entering the new data in the proper form)
• Linking the search to specific science content standards (at least the National Science Education Standards)