Alternative Conceptions of Plate Tectonics Held by Nonscience Undergraduates

Clark, Scott K.; Libarkin, Julie C.; Kortz, Karen M.; Jordan, Sarah C.

doi:10.5408/1.3651696

Cited by 45 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Furthermore, accessing and organizing misconception resources can be a time-consuming task because useful information is often scattered across a wide variety of scientific journals and throughout the World Wide Web. While many researchers have devoted themselves to discovering select misconceptions (Clark, Jordan, Kortz, & Libarkin, 2011;Dove, 1998;Gobert, 2000;Kali, Orion, & Eylon, 2003;Sibley, 2005), there has been little in the way of an easy to access summary, both from journals and from reliable sites from the World Wide Web, that would place geoscience misconceptions within easy reach of in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, curriculum developers, students, and of course educational researchers. The purpose of this paper, then, is to organize and analyze over 500 geoscience misconceptions from a broad array of over 70 journal articles and web resources with the goal of providing a comprehensive platform for addressing geoscience misconceptions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Compilation and Review of over 500 Geoscience Misconceptions

Francek

2013

International Journal of Science Education

109

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This paper organizes and analyses over 500 geoscience misconceptions relating to earthquakes, earth structure, geologic resources, glaciers, historical geology, karst (limestone terrains), plate tectonics, rivers, rocks and minerals, soils, volcanoes, and weathering and erosion. Journal and reliable web resources were reviewed to discover (1) the frequency of misconceptions by subject matter, group (primary, middle-school, high-school, middle-/high-school, college, pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and undefined) and source (journal versus web); and (2) the pattern of misconceptions across age groups and (3) directions for future research. A total of 502 misconceptions were discovered, with over 40% targeting a middle-and high-school audience. Plate tectonics comprised 19% of all misconceptions, with another 14% and 13% associated with weathering/erosion and historical geology, respectively. Over 80% of all the misconceptions were derived from peer-reviewed journals or web sources, the rest originated from reliable sources on the World Wide Web. The supernatural origin for many of the geoscience phenomena listed here is abandoned by middle school, but in other cases, some misconceptions seem robust through adulthood. Examples of such misconceptions include the origin/pattern of earthquakes, thickness of the earth's crust, oil's origin, movement mechanisms for glaciers, co-existence of humans and dinosaurs, water movement within karst terrains, the nature of plate boundaries, the power of water as an agent of geomorphic change, what constitutes a mineral and a rock, thickness of the soil layer, the distribution of volcanoes, and the difference between weathering and erosion.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Compilation and Review of over 500 Geoscience Misconceptions

Francek

2013

International Journal of Science Education

109

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“…It is possible that the first author's background as a senior secondary Earth science teacher has meant that he was able to gain a more in-depth insight into students' conceptions at interview. The Australian context of the research may also play a role in the novel findings, as previous research reporting school and university students' conceptions of plate tectonics originates from elsewhere (e.g., Clark et al, 2011;Marques & Thompson, 1997;Smith & Bermea, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These studies were predominantly conducted with university students (e.g., Clark, Libarkin, Kortz, & Jordan, 2011;Smith & Bermea, 2012) and the authors are only aware of one published study has investigated school students' alternative conceptions about plate tectonics. This study, conducted by Marques and Thompson (1997), reports on Portuguese students' alternative conceptions of continental movement and plate tectonics.…”

Section: Conceptual Change Learning and Students' Alternative Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Junior secondary school students' conceptions about plate tectonics

Mills

Tomas

Lewthwaite

2016

International Research in Geographical and Environmental Educat

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There are ongoing calls for research that identifies students' conceptions about geographical phenomena. In response, this study investigates junior secondary school students' (N=95) conceptions about plate tectonics. Student response data was generated from semi-structured interviews-about-instances and a two-tiered multiple-choice test instrument developed and validated by the researchers. There were three main findings: (1) students held many alternative conceptions about plate tectonics, most of which have not been reported in previous research; (2) students' alternative conceptions most commonly concerned the formation of landforms at tectonic plate boundaries; and (3) students were especially confused about the cause of subduction at an oceanic-continental convergent plate boundary. The findings of this study can assist geography teachers and researchers to develop innovative pedagogies that consider students' pre-instructional alternative conceptions and promote conceptual change learning.

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“…The assessment included 15 tectonics content items and 19 items that assess GTR skills as they apply to tectonics concepts. The tectonics content items were designed to address student misconceptions and misunderstandings about tectonics reported in the literature (see American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS] Project 2061, n.d.; Clark, Jordan, Kortz, & Libarkin, 2011;King, 2000;Kirby, 2011;Marques & Thompson, 1997a, 1997b.…”

Section: Gtr Assessment Measurementioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Enactment of Web GIS on Students' Geospatial Thinking and Reasoning and Tectonics Understandings

Bodzin

Qiong

Bressler

et al. 2015

Computers in the Schools

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Geospatially enabled learning technologies may enhance Earth science learning by placing emphasis on geographic space, visualization, scale, representation, and geospatial thinking and reasoning (GTR) skills. This study examined if and how a series of Web geographic information system investigations that the researchers developed improved urban middle-school learners' GTR skills and their understanding of tectonics concepts. Paired-sample t tests for analyses of tectonics content knowledge and GTR achievement measures revealed statistically significant gains from pretestto posttest (p < .001) with large effect sizes. The findings provide support that GTR related to tectonics can be learned with appropriately designed learning activities using Web-based geographic information systems.

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Alternative Conceptions of Plate Tectonics Held by Nonscience Undergraduates

Cited by 45 publications

References 37 publications

A Compilation and Review of over 500 Geoscience Misconceptions

A Compilation and Review of over 500 Geoscience Misconceptions

Junior secondary school students' conceptions about plate tectonics

Examining the Enactment of Web GIS on Students' Geospatial Thinking and Reasoning and Tectonics Understandings

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