The double curse of misconceptions: misconceptions impair not only text comprehension but also metacomprehension in the domain of statistics

Prinz, Anja; Golke, Stefanie; Wittwer, Jörg

doi:10.1007/s11251-018-9452-6

Cited by 26 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…To measure students' monitoring accuracy, we asked them to make prospective judgments about their expected performance on the posttest (i.e., text-based and inference questions combined) to investigate their monitoring accuracy by rating the following item: "How confident are you that you can answer questions to the text correctly?" [62,63]. Monitoring accuracy is commonly measured by the correspondence between students' judgements of their own current understanding and their actual performance on a comprehension test [60,64,65].…”

Section: (Meta-)cognitive Processes During the Learning Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Does increasing social presence enhance the effectiveness of writing explanations?

2021

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Writing explanations has demonstrated to be less effective than providing oral explanations, as writing triggers less amounts of perceived social presence during explaining. In this study, we investigated whether increasing social presence during writing explanations would aid learning. University students (N = 137) read an instructional text about immunology; their subsequent task depended on experimental condition. Students either explained the contents to a fictitious peer orally, wrote their explanations in a text editor, or wrote them in a messenger chat, which was assumed to induce higher levels of social presence. A control group retrieved the material. Surprisingly, we did not obtain any differences in learning outcomes between experimental conditions. Interestingly, explaining was more effortful, enjoyable, and interesting than retrieving. This study shows that solely inducing social presence does not improve learning from writing explanations. More importantly, the findings underscore the importance of cognitive and motivational conditions during learning activities.

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Section: (Meta-)cognitive Processes During the Learning Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Does increasing social presence enhance the effectiveness of writing explanations?

2021

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“…Such misconceptions have detrimental effects on learning from reading. Specifically, Prinz et al (2019; see also Prinz et al 2018) found that learners who had more misconceptions about covariance not only achieved poorer comprehension of a text on covariance but also provided more overconfident predictions of their comprehension than learners who had fewer misconceptions. The same result was found when the learners were required to use their acquired knowledge about covariance to understand an educational research report that presented empirical findings involving covariance: Compared with learners who had fewer misconceptions, learners who had more misconceptions revealed poorer knowledge transfer as well as more overconfident predictions of their transfer.…”

Section: Misconceptions Impair Learning From Text and Metacomprehension Accuracymentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Typical examples of statistical misconceptions refer to the concept of covariance. For instance, many learners erroneously believe that covariance proves a causal relationship between two variables or that covariance is a standardized statistic that takes on values within a finite range just like the correlation coefficient (e.g., Moritz 2004;Prinz et al 2018Prinz et al , 2019. Such misconceptions have detrimental effects on learning from reading.…”

Section: Misconceptions Impair Learning From Text and Metacomprehension Accuracymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A common challenge in instruction is that learners have misconceptions, which are incorrect beliefs that are typically well-embedded in their knowledge structures. When studying texts, learners with misconceptions not only achieve poorer text comprehension and knowledge transfer (e.g., Kendeou and Van den Broek 2005;Weingartner and Masnick 2019) but also more strongly overestimate their comprehension and transfer (Prinz et al 2018(Prinz et al , 2019. However, only when learners carefully monitor and accurately judge their learning from text, known as metacomprehension accuracy, can they engage in effective regulation processes to improve their performance (e.g., Rawson et al 2011;Thiede et al 2003; see, e.g., also Nelson and Narens 1990;Winne and Hadwin 1998).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Counteracting detrimental effects of misconceptions on learning and metacomprehension accuracy: The utility of refutation texts and think sheets

2021

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Previous research has shown that misconceptions impair not only learners’ text comprehension and knowledge transfer but also the accuracy with which they predict their comprehension and transfer. In the present experiment with N = 92 university students, we investigated to what extent reading a refutation text or completing a think sheet compared with a control condition counteracts these adverse effects of misconceptions. The results revealed that both reading a refutation text and completing a think sheet supported learners with misconceptions in acquiring and accurately predicting their comprehension. Completing a think sheet additionally supported the learners in transferring their newly acquired knowledge, even though they were underconfident in their ability to do so. Moreover, learners who completed a think sheet were generally more accurate in discriminating between correctly and incorrectly answered test questions. Finally, delayed testing showed that the learning effects were quite stable, independent of the instructional method. This study reinforces the effectiveness of refutation texts and think sheets and provides important practical implications and avenues for future research.

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“…In this case, learners overestimate the knowledge they have acquired from learning. Research shows that this phenomenon is rather the rule than the exception (e.g., Dunning et al, 2003;Prinz, Wittwer, & Golke, 2018).…”

Section: Table 1 About Herementioning

confidence: 99%

Misconceptions in Physics Explainer Videos and the Illusion of Understanding: An Experimental Study

Kulgemeyer¹,

J²

2021

Preprint

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Online explanation videos on platforms like YouTube are popular among students and serve as an important resource for both distance learning and regular science education. Despite their immense potential, some of the explainer videos for physics include problematic explanation approaches, possibly fostering misconceptions. However, some of them manage to achieve good ratings on YouTube. A possible reason could be that explainer videos with misconceptions foster an “illusion of understanding”—the mistaken belief that a topic has been understood. In particular, misconceptions close to everyday experiences might elicit greater interest and appear more convincing than scientifically correct explanations. This experimental study was conducted to research this effect. Physics learners (N = 149), with a low prior knowledge enrolled in introductory university courses on primary education, were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. While the experimental group watched a video introducing the concept of force relying on misconceptions, the control group watched the scientifically correct video. Both videos were comparable in terms of comprehensibility and duration. In the posttest, the experimental group believed that the video was scientifically correct, well-explained, and that they do not require further instruction to understand the concept—indicators of an illusion of understanding. The video including misconceptions was perceived as better understandable than the scientifically correct video (d = 0.62*). The experimental group was significantly more convinced by the misconception after watching the video than the control group (d = 1.86**). They learnt more erroneous knowledge about the misconception than the control group about the scientifically correct concept (Cohen’s q = 0.37*). We argue that this might become problematic (a) in physics instruction because students who have watched a misleading video might regard further teaching in school as irrelevant, and (b) learners might tend to rate videos including misconceptions better on an online platform like YouTube.

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The double curse of misconceptions: misconceptions impair not only text comprehension but also metacomprehension in the domain of statistics

Cited by 26 publications

References 44 publications

Does increasing social presence enhance the effectiveness of writing explanations?

Does increasing social presence enhance the effectiveness of writing explanations?

Counteracting detrimental effects of misconceptions on learning and metacomprehension accuracy: The utility of refutation texts and think sheets

Misconceptions in Physics Explainer Videos and the Illusion of Understanding: An Experimental Study

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