Misconceptions

50 Misconceptions in Science
• https://sites.miamioh.edu/exemplary-science-
teaching/2020/04/how-to-address-
misconceptions-in-the-science-classroom/

• How many were new for you?

Mecartor Projection
Mapped: Visualizing the True
Size of Africa (Desjardins,
2020)
 Misconceptions
• What are they?
• Where do they come from? (Coley & Tanner
2012)
• What can we do about them (as Life Science
Teachers)?
• Class Activity (Tut2)
 Misconceptions
• Miconceptions are defined as contradicting
believes, concepts or understanding to
scientific knowledge
• Happens at each stage of learning
(e.g. primary school children observing puddles-
believe water seeps into ground over time, do
not relate it to evaporation)
 Misconceptions
A multifaceted step approach is needed when
dealing with misconceptions
1. Understanding what causes misconceptions
2. Identifying misconceptions in your class
3. Correcting Misconceptions
 Misconceptions
• Concepts are building blocks of knowledge
• Relationship of concepts are build by learners
as they experience the world
• New knowledge is integrated into existing
framework of understanding
• Misconceptions can easily formed
• Visible in tests when knowledge is tested in
context / application
 Sources of Misconceptions
• Prior Knowledge – cognitive constructs
• Preconceived notions are popular conceptions
rooted in everyday experiences. For example,
many people believe that water flowing
underground must flow in streams because the
water they see at the earth's surface flows in
streams.
• Preconceived notions plague students' views of
heat, energy, and gravity (Brown and Clement,
1991), among others.
 Sources of Misconceptions
• Nonscientific beliefs include views learned by
students from sources other than scientific
education, such as religious or mythical
teachings. For example, some students have
learned through religious instruction about an
abbreviated history of the earth and its life forms.
The disparity between this widely held belief and
the scientific evidence for a far more extended
pre-history has led to considerable controversy in
the teaching of science.
 Sources of Misconceptions
• Conceptual misunderstandings arise when
students are taught scientific information in a
way that does not provoke them to confront
paradoxes and conflicts resulting from their
own preconceived notions and nonscientific
beliefs. To deal with their confusion, students
construct faulty models that usually are so
weak that the students themselves are
insecure about the concepts.
Example
Students are asked to explain
why water droplets form on the
outside of a cold glass

Answers reveal misconceptions

about condensation and the
availability of water vapour in the
air

Discrepant events can be used to

puzzle and evoke curiosity in
learners
 Sources of Misconceptions
• Vernacular misconceptions arise from the use of
words that mean one thing in everyday life and
another in a scientific context (e.g., "work").
• A geology professor noted that students have
difficulty with the idea that glaciers retreat,
because they picture the glacier stopping, turning
around, and moving in the opposite direction.
Substitution of the word "melt" for "retreat"
helps reinforce the correct interpretation that the
front end of the glacier simply melts faster than
the ice in front of the glacier
 Sources of Misconceptions
• Factual misconceptions are falsities often
learned at an early age and retained
unchallenged into adulthood. If you think
about it, the idea that "lightning never strikes
twice in the same place" is clearly nonsense,
but that notion may be buried somewhere in
your belief system. (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine. 1997. Science Teaching Reconsidered: A Handbook. Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/5287.
 Cognitive Principles and the
Development of Biology Thinking
John D. Coley* and Kimberly D.
Tanner† (2012)
 Telelogical Thinking
• starting from the end and reasoning back,
explaining things based on their end purpose.
A teleological statement you've probably
heard before is "everything happens for a
reason.“
 Examples for teleological thinking
• Genes turn on so that the cell can develop
properly.
• Birds have wings so they can fly.
• Plants give off oxygen, because animals need
oxygen to survive.
• Individual organisms adapt and change to fit
their environments.
• Evolution is the striving toward higher forms
of life on earth.
 Examples of Misconceptions
• Homeostasis keeps the body static and
unchanging.
• Members of the same species are almost
identical in their physical characteristics.
• If left alone, a wetland ecosystem will remain a
wetland indefinitely.
• Because different cells in an organism have
different physical characteristics, they must
contain different DNA.
• Changing a single gene in an organism results in a
new kind of organism.
 Misconception
• Disturbance in ecosystems has no beneficial role.
• Cell death in an organism is unusual and
pathological.
• Sexual reproduction always involves two
organisms mating, and therefore plants cannot
reproduce sexually.
• Plants suck up their food from the soil through
their roots.
• The males of any species are usually bigger and
stronger than the females.
 Identifying Misconceptions
• Testing prior knowledge to identify misconceptions
• Concept maps powerful tool as it requires students to
show understanding in context and relationship
• Importance -Specific Aim 1: Teaching Science in context
• Specific Aim 1 involves knowing, understanding, and
making meaning of sciences, thereby enabling learners
to make many connections between the ideas and
concepts. Making such connections makes it possible
for learners to apply their knowledge in new and
unfamiliar contexts
 Identifying Misconceptions
If you stand
on your Your head
head, your will get too
feet won’t much
get any blood
blood
If won’t
Your heart make any
will need difference
to pump to your
harder heart or
blood
circulation
CARTOONS can help to identify misconceptions
 Identifying Misconceptions
There is a range of tools and techniques
available for teachers to identify
misconceptions.
From assessments, to open ended questions,
concept maps, observations made in class
The next two figures have been taken from a
publication (Patil et al 2019) that is focusing on
these tools and techniques. The reading is
available on Learn
Identifying misconceptions
Identifying misconceptions
 How to correct Misconceptions
• More is needed than just to explain the
misconceptions
• Students need to be actively involved in correcting
misconceptions
• Students have to be given a chance to explore and test
their own model of the universe and understand its
limits to form a deeper understanding without the
misconceptions from their earlier experiences
• Address misconceptions that are specific to other
cultures by researching more about its origin and
anticipate them to occur in the classroom!
• Revisit common misconceptions as it conceptual
change does not occur overnight
 How to identify & correct
misconceptions
• Dr Muller works in the field of science
education. Watch his video (as uploaded on
learn) and pay attention what he is doing to
identify misconceptions and how he is
correcting them
• How can you implement this in your own
teaching
• https://youtu.be/hNGJ0WHXMyE
Practice Examples
 Activity: Identify the type of misconception and explain
why this is a misconception

1. Seeds and eggs are not living things.

2. Human growth is caused by cells getting larger.
3. Bacteria are bad.
4. If your dad is bald, you’ll be bald too.
5. Ice cubes make your cooldrink cold.
6. Humans evolved from monkeys.
7. Crocodiles (reptiles) have to eat regularly to
survive
1. Read out the misconception.
2. Explain the misconception the type
of misconception
(Essential/Anthropocentric/Teleologica
l) and why is this.
3. Explain how you would clarify this
misconception to your learners.
 Seeds and eggs are not living things

The concept of 'living' is linked to the child's

developing conceptual framework about biological
processes". Living things needed nutrients, but few
use the concept of breathing or reproduction in
defining living things. Learners say living things eat,
drink, move, breathe, and grow.

ANTHROPOCENTRIC THINKING
Green plants, algae, and certain archaea and
bacteria
 Human growth is caused by cells
getting larger
• Learners sometimes think that living things
grow because cells get larger, and they do not
understand the role of differentiation of cells
(Berthelson, 1999). In reality,
• Cells divide and specialize which causes a
multicellular organism's growth (Berthelson,
1999).

Essential Thinking
 Bacteria are bad
• Not all bacteria are bad;
gut bacteria, resident
flora, or your microbiome,
which are groups of
microbes living in and on
your body.

Essentialist
 If your dad is bald, you’ll be bald too
The genes for hair loss and hair
loss itself are passed down from
both sides of the family.

Men inherit their “X”

chromosome from their mother
and “Y” from their father.
Baldness is strongly associate
with the AR gene found on the
“X” chromosome

Essential Thinking
 Ice cubes make your cooldrink cold

As the ice cube melts, it absorbs heat energy from

its surroundings. Water molecules frozen as ice
are tightly bound. Water molecules in the form of
liquid aren't. So, to turn a solid into a liquid means
breaking bonds, and that takes energy.

Thermal energy from water is absorbed by the ice

cubes.

Teleological Thinking
 Humans evolved from monkeys
Essential Thinking/Anthropocentric
Instead, monkeys and humans share a common ancestor
from which both evolved around 25 million years ago.
This evolutionary relationship is supported both by the
fossil record and DNA analysis. A 2007 study showed
that humans and rhesus monkeys share about 93% of
their DNA.
 Crocodiles (reptiles) have to eat
regularly to survive
• Anthropocentric Thinking

Some reptiles like the crocodile can go up to a

year without eating. They go through dorment
phases and less active phases. Unlike human
beings who have to eat regular to survive.