Listening to Students to Research the Creation of Scientific Understandings
Possible causes of misconceptions:
Vocabulary associated with developmental misconceptions
Animism speaking as if natural phenomena, living and non living things are alive or have a soul.
Anthropomorphism speaking as if natural phenomena, living and non human living organisms have humanmotivation, characteristics, or behaviors.
Artificialism speak as if a human created something not nature or something natural.Social experiences in the world with family, friends, neighbors, TV, mass media, school, libraries, museums, shopping malls,
Oral language
Written language
Vocabulary may include misuse of words.
Anthropomorphism, (animism, artificialism) giving nonliving objects, animals, or natural phenomenon human or living characteristics
Developmental have not developed logical reasoning beyond direct observable comparisons.
Use perceptual senses rather than logic usually resulting from spatial visual reasoning. Pennies are worth more than a dime because there are more, a penny is more than a dime because it is bigger, five blocks together is less than five blocks spread out, one wire is smaller because it is bent...
Must construct the mental structure to
1. decenter (center focus on one feature and ignore others),
2. use reversibility (able to see that some actions can be undone),
3. see transformations (able to see change as an infinite series),
4. stop the use of egocentric thinking, (all actions are related to them) and
5. stop the use of transductive reasoning (faulty reasoning)
Metaphorically use of a metaphor (The sun is like a fire)
Episodic relate to a previous event or particular context.
Robert Sweetland's Notes ©