Describes 10 steps for developing a diagnostic test of students' misconceptions and the use of two tests in chemistry (covalent bonding and structure) and in biology (photosynthesis and respiration in plants). Discusses the results and some implications for teaching science. (YP)

Two studies examined the construction of children's beliefs about projectile motion of a ball rolled off a table. Describes the concepts used by children, analyzes their use as a function of age, and gives a naturalistic description of their use. Results indicate that appropriate instruction can remediate misconceptions. (MDH)

Reports misconceptions identified in students with respect to the topic of parallel lines and the teaching strategies found to be useful in challenging those misconceptions. (11 references) (MDH)

Examined fifth-grade students' survey responses to investigate incorrect rules that derive from children's efforts to interpret decimals as integers or as fractions. Regarding fractions, difficulties arise because only the whole-part approach to fractions is presented in elementary school. (Author/MDH)

Explores high school students' and preservice teachers' knowledge of light, vision, and related topics before and after commonly practiced instruction. Suggests a hierarchical structure to represent the collective conceptual knowledge of students and teachers in terms of facets and schemes of knowledge. Makes suggestions for designing instruction…

An administrator's daily life is full of decisions that often involve an "on the spot" solution. This paper discusses some of the principles involved in drawing inferences in research and decision making, and describes how a knowledge of decision-making errors can help administrators. The paper also describes a case study that…

During the summer of 1986 a conference funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) was organized to assess the current state of cognitive research on the psychology of physics problem solving, and to examine the needs of physics instructors and instructional designers that must be addressed by a psychological theory of physics problem solving.…

Investigates commonsense knowledge schemes connecting the elements weight, air, and gravity to the phenomena of free fall of a range of students from primary school children to adults. Finds that majority of people from the secondary education level onwards held alternative schemes. Discusses educational impacts of mass media. (Author/YP)

Reports the rationale, design, validation, and uses of the "Force Concept Inventory," an instrument to assess the students' beliefs on force. Includes results and implications of two studies that compared the inventory with the "Mechanics Baseline." Includes a copy of the instrument. (MDH)

Concept mapping with "Learning Tool," a computerized mapping program, was used to assess changes in the content and organization of 17 preservice teachers' concept maps for the topic of effective teaching. This study illustrates how concept mapping can be useful in describing students' evolving constructions of knowledge in a particular…

Provides an overview of the research concerning students' perceptions of foreign nations. Compares and contrasts the various measurement techniques including the two most commonly used; semantic differential scales and pair comparisons. Suggests methods for alternative analysis and offers recommendations for future research. Includes a sample…

This paper evaluates the strengths and limitations of a computer tutor designed to help students understand physics concepts. The tutor uses a teaching strategy called "bridging analogies" that previous research has demonstrated to be successful in one-to-one tutoring. The strategy is designed to remedy misconceptions by appealing to existing…

It is often both possible and valuable for a teacher to be a researcher in his or her own classroom. This paper describes the nature of cognitive research and focuses on two areas of research that may be of special interest to classroom physics teachers. The first area refers to misconceptions that students bring with them to their physics…

Discussed are inconsistencies and cognitive conflict with respect to current mathematical knowledge of students and how that knowledge might be modified is discussed. The inconsistencies that students generate for themselves and those produced by the teacher are described. (KR)

Reviews a monograph which addresses children's higher-order thinking skills. Suggests the following for teaching problem solving: identify and develop content-independent and content-dependent problem-solving skills, connect developed skills through workshop-style activities to subject discipline, and help students identify and reconstruct their…