Many students encounter difficulties in science and mathematics. Earlier research suggested that although intuitions are often needed to gain new ideas and concepts and to solve problems in science and mathematics, some of students' difficulties could stem from the interference of intuitive reasoning. The literature suggests that overcoming…

This study investigated whether intuitive, naive conceptions of "living things" based on objects' mobility (movement = alive) persist into adolescence and affect 10th graders' accuracy of responses and reaction times during object classification. Most of the 58 students classified the test objects correctly as living/nonliving, yet they…

One theoretical framework which addresses students' conceptions and reasoning processes in mathematics and science education is the intuitive rules theory. According to this theory, students' reasoning is affected by intuitive rules when they solve a wide variety of conceptually non-related mathematical and scientific tasks that share some common…