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Misconception Alchemy

Turning thought-lead into thought-goldDerek Muller

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Current trends

• Science and technology– In society– In education

• Criticism of education• Search for the silver bullet – flipped class?• Misconceptions abound

– Indicator– Obstacle

Misconceptions

• Please refer to www.veritasium.com • Please see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwxbZcL7DZA for some misconception examples

Have you seen any Veritasium videos?

Vei

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A. NoneB. 1C. A handfulD. All of them

Outline

• Multimedia studies• Misconceptions• Percolation theory of learning• Implications• A song?

Where was I born?

Kelowna, BC

Sacramento, CA Traralgon, VIC

Pretoria, SA

Where was I born?

Traralgon, VIC

My PhD Research

• How should you design multimedia presentations to promote conceptual learning in physics?

• Direct application to multimedia design• Implications for teaching• Controlled, transparent, repeatable means

of testing instructional strategies• Testing in real learning environments

Hasn’t it been done?

• Passé • “Quite frankly, with few exceptions, there

is not a body of research on the design, use and value of multimedia systems” (Moore et al. 2004)

• Why not?– Hype and excitement in place of research– Shifting perspectives on education– Asking the wrong questions– Rushed implementation in schools

A simple experiment

• Decide on learning objectives → set of test questions

1. Pre-test students online2. Present video3. Post-test with same questions• Ask them to rate confidence in answers• Interview them – do they think they learned?

Learning outcomes

• Newton’s First and Second Laws• Tests have been designed and validated to

assess students’ conceptions in this area– Force Concept Inventory (FCI)– Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE)

• 26-question multiple choice test

Pre-test scores

CourseAdvancedRegularFundamentals

Mea

n P

re (

/26)

20

15

10

5

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

Confidence on the pre-test

CourseAdvancedRegularFundamentals

Ave

rag

e co

nfid

ence

on

pre-

test

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

Exposition

Please see: http://youtu.be/YF4PtjGiDcs

Course1002

Mea

n

5

4

3

2

1

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

Average confidence on post-testAverage confidence on pre-test

Gain in confidence

Course1002

Mea

n

5

4

3

2

1

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

Average confidence on post-testAverage confidence on pre-test

Gain in confidence

Interviews

• Having things like the car just sitting on the angle with arrows pointing in each of the directions and the size of the arrow changing showing how the force was affecting it made it a lot more visual and easier to understand.

• I thought it was simple to understand– Yeah, definitely, very simple explanations. So it

makes physics look really simple (which I know is not true!). And it was also very clear and concise to the point, doesn’t go around in circles, really.

Interviews

• I had something similar – I liked the simplicity of it. So the examples were something that you come across all the time and it was really easy to understand because you had the visuals and the different colours and stuff. And also the girl, she was very clear. She didn’t have too much inflection either way so she was very commanding, you wanted to listen to her.

Key words

Key word/phrase Frequency

Simple 7

Clear 7

Concise 4

Easy to understand 3

Confused 0

Hard to understand 0

By how much did scores improve?

• Pre-test average = 5.5 for Fundamentals• Post-test =A. 15-20B. 10-15C. 6-10D. 5.5

What about test scores?

TreatmentExposition

Mea

n

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

PostPre

What about test scores?

TreatmentExposition

Mea

n

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

PostPre

WHAT WENT WRONG?

Misconceptions

• Preconceptions, Alternative Conceptions, Naïve Conceptions etc.

• Direct vs. emergent• Theory vs. knowledge in pieces• Cueing

A. To the rightB. To the leftC. It depends

The spool

The spool

A. To the rightB. To the leftC. It depends

Perception and misconceptions

Please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJbKieEC49M

Misconceptions

Misconceptions cause

misperception

Misperception limits attention

Increase confidence in

Misconceptions

• Gravity is the same on the way down as it was on the way up except for there was the other force that was pushing the ball up so that force is steadily decreased until it’s reached its point of stoppage or whatever at the origin and then it comes down with the constant force of gravity

Misconceptions cause

misperception

• It wasn’t that hard to pay attention to, I think, because I already knew what she was talking about. So I was listening, but I wasn’t really paying utmost attention.

• Newton’s first law I knew already, I guess it was a bit of revision from two years ago.

Misperception limits attention

Raise cognitive load

• Learning is an effortful and mindful process and students should be encouraged to construct their own knowledge and skills through active processing, rather than being passive listeners (Vosniadou et al. 2001)

• Can you make listeners active?

Dialogue

• Same correct physics concepts addressed• Same definitions, examples, graphs, diagrams,

animations• Additional alternative conceptions raised by

the ‘student’ and illustrated• Discussion to resolve inconsistencies

Dialogue

Please see: http://youtu.be/VvyTKqxYQGc

Key Words

Key word/phrase Expositions Dialogue

Simple 7

Clear 7

Concise 4

Easy to understand 3

Confused 0

Hard to understand 0

Key Words

Key word/phrase Expositions Dialogue

Simple 7 0

Clear 7 0

Concise 4 0

Easy to understand 3 0

Confused 0 5

Hard to understand 0 1

Results

TreatmentDialogueExposition

Mea

n

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

PostPre

Results

TreatmentDialogueExposition

Mea

n

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

PostPre

Did they really change their ideas?

• Why did you pick B [force from the cable = force of gravity]? I just want you to talk us through your thought processes.

• So I had A and I thought it was right and then I went down [the list] and the rest were wrong except B, which I wasn’t sure about because I thought, hang on, didn’t they say it was equal on the book even though it’s moving – ‘cause the arrows were the same and it was still moving. And I was thinking ‘that doesn’t make sense,’ and then I had a look at it and I thought of F equals MA and I thought it’s not accelerating because it’s at a constant speed [points to question] and so if force equals mass times acceleration and acceleration equals zero then force equals zero – so they [the forces] must be equal because they’re opposite vectors – cancel each other out.

Clues to differences in learning• I liked that the guy was just as confused as I was –

to begin with. The fact that he was confused kind of helped the whole explanation process, in me [points to her head] to understand.

• Saying all the common misconceptions, that was really helpful so you know what it is but you also know what it’s not. So you can know that if you end up with that, you’re like ‘no, can’t be that.’ So that helped a lot.

• Did you have anything like that?• Yeah, the juggling ball one – the misconception is

there’s a force and that it’s slowly decreasing until it reaches the top and then it disappears or whatever. That was the misconception I think.

Mental effort during instruction

• I liked that it was asking me questions, so I had to actually think about it rather than just telling me stuff, because then it had more relevance to me... Also, by then, asking those questions I didn't feel as stupid as I did beforehand.

Mental effort during instruction

TreatmentDialogueExposition

Mea

n m

enta

l effo

rt d

urin

g in

stru

ctio

n (/

9)

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

Higher knowledge groups

TreatmentDialogueRefutationExtended ExpositionExposition

Mea

n G

ain

5

4

3

2

1

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

AdvancedRegularFundamentals

Course

Higher knowledge groups

TreatmentDialogueRefutationExtended ExpositionExposition

Mea

n G

ain

5

4

3

2

1

0

Error Bars: +/- 1 SE

AdvancedRegularFundamentals

Course

Implications

F = maF= ma

Push = (weight)(speed)Use these conceptions

Implications

• Flipped Classroom: Text and/or video should be misconception-based

• Teach to the misconceptions• Drive the class towards them• Force students to assess their perception• Scaffolding – worked examples, completion problems,

paired problems• Only remove scaffolding when students become

proficient• Use existing conceptions

Vei

42.0 an element of truthritasium