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Revisiting students’ scientific misconceptions

At the time when I embarked upon my own teaching career, the study of student misconceptions was a popular focus for science education research (e.g. Driver et al. 1994). This work helped to make explicit the ideas that students were carrying in their heads and built on David Ausubel’s work that showed that students were learning by building on what they already knew. Where that prior knowledge was in alignment with accepted scientific knowledge, then students were likely to do well. But when the prior knowledge that students activated for their further learning was based on misconceptions (ideas that did not align with accepted views) their further learning was impeded. These misconceptions were often linked to the historical development of ideas, and were made worse by a sloppy use of language that might be acceptable in day-to-day activities, but which did not fit with science. It was also found that many science teachers shared misconceptions with their students, making progress towards a better understanding of science even more difficult to achieve. These misconceptions have been shown to be tenacious, and often resistant to correction. This awareness of the multiple versions of the world that students held in their heads was a turning point for my own classroompractice, suddenlymaking the whole teaching enterprisemore interesting and making the need for dialogue and engagement with the students in my classrooms all the more important. It was at this time that I realised that teaching Biology was not just about dispensing facts, and that the students in my classrooms didn’t simply represent a backdrop for my own fascination for the living world. In my mind, terms like ‘active learning’ and ‘student engagement’ took on new meanings at that time as I worked towards learning what it was that my students didn’t know, and what was preventing them from understanding the Biology curriculum. The paper in this issue by Kumandaş, Ateskan and Lane, reminds us of the importance of appreciating the nature of student misconceptions and offers a updated synthesis of the literature, its focus and typical methodologies. Whilst much of the Biology curriculum will be more or less the same as it was 20 years ago, there will be new concepts included in our teaching and a new generation of students having to learn them. It is then a sensible step to revise our understanding of a well-trodden research path to ensure we keep up to date and also to engage new entrants to the teaching profession who may have the same revelation as I had about the real nature of Biology teaching.