Types of Scientific Misconceptions
Miconceptions (a.k.a. alternative conceptions, alternative frameworks, etc) are a key issue from Constructivism in science education, a major theoretical perspective informing science teaching. In general, scientific misconceptions have their foundations in a few "intuitive knowledge domains, including folkmechanics (object boundaries and movements), folkbiology (biological species configurations and relationships), and folkpsychology (interactive agents and goal-directed behavior)", that enable humans to interact effectively with the world in which they evolved. That these folksciences do not map accurately onto modern scientific theory is not unexpected. A second major source of scientific misconceptions are instruction-induced or didaskalogenic misconceptions.
There has been extensive research into students' informal ideas about science topics, and studies have suggested reported misconceptions vary considerably in terms of properties such as coherence, stability, context-dependence, range of application etc. Misconceptions can be broken down into five basic categories,(Alkhalifa ,2006) 1) preconceived notions; 2) nonscientific beliefs; 3) conceptual misunderstandings; 4) vernacular misconceptions; and 5) factual misconceptions (e.g., Committee on Undergraduate Science Education, 1997).
While most student misconceptions go unrecognized, there has been an informal effort to identify errors and misconceptions present in textbooks. The Bad Science web page, maintained by Alistair Fraser, is a good resource. Another important resource is the Students' and Teachers' Conceptions and Science Education (STCSE) website maintained by Reinders Duit. Another useful resource related to chemistry has been compiled by Vanessa Barker
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