About this session

Saturday, 12:10 PM - 1:40 PM

Making Sense of Misconceptions: Exploring the Mechanisms and Social Context of Children's Science Misconceptions

Young children have many misconceptions about science and nature (Shtulman, 2017) that have been investigated from a variety of perspectives. While some researchers aim to create interventions to correct science misconceptions, this proposed symposium brings together three research teams who have explored the cognitive mechanisms and social contexts of children’s misconceptions. The discussant in this proposed symposium is an expert in children’s cognitive development and has dedicated many years to studying children’s science misconceptions.

The first two talks explore the cognitive mechanisms of misconceptions. The first talk is a correlational study that investigates domain-general predictors (i.e., executive functioning, cognitive reflection, and consistency monitoring) of children's misconceptions about the physical world. Researchers found that children with better physics understanding had higher scores on a consistency monitoring measure, demonstrating an important link between noticing inconsistencies, and revising and constructing theories. The next talk examines children’s cognitive reflection and their ontological judgments and justifications about the existence of unobservable supernatural and scientific entities. This study found that children did not distinguish between a low consensus scientific entity and supernatural entities. Interestingly, children’s judgements and justifications were unrelated to cognitive reflection.

The third talk explores how parents and children discuss “low-stakes” general science misconceptions compared to “high-stakes” misconceptions about children’s health and safety. Researchers found that parents were more likely to correct high- than low-stakes misconceptions.

Taken together these talks elucidate the complex nature of children’s misconceptions and the need for future research that considers both the cognitive mechanisms and the social context.

Paper #1
Title	Consistency Monitoring and Domain-Specific Learning
Presenting author	Igor Bascandziev, Ed.D., Harvard University, United States

Paper #2
Title	"Because they don't exist" Children’s misconceptions about the existence of scientific and supernatural entities
Presenting author	Allison J. Williams-Gant, Ph.D., Boston University, United States

Paper #3
Title	Parent’s Observed and Reported Approaches to Children’s Science Misconceptions
Presenting author	Sam R. McHugh, Ph.D., Brown University, United States

View all paper details

Session chair
Sam R. McHugh, Ph.D., Brown University, United States

Discussant
Dr. Andrew E. Shtulman, Ph.D., Occidental College, United States

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