Describes action research experiences as the study was conducted and reflection upon the results. Determines whether 1st grade students have similar misconceptions about animals. Investigates whether a constructivist approach focusing on students' prior knowledge could alter the misconceptions. (Author/KHR)

Relates how a blunder about the Arctic Ocean and the polar ice cap made by the author in his first year of teaching led to a successful learning experience. Lists five important discussion topics that social studies teachers should use to teach about this remote, but strategic, part of the world. (LS)

Addresses common misconceptions about young adolescents, concentrating on some truths garnered from middle-school art teachers' experience. Young adolescents can respect authority, are capable of self-discipline, can manage their own behavior and art materials, are bored by routine assignments, enjoy learning and applying new skills, have adequate…

Regardless of how many times people are told by the Educational Testing Service not to use the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) as a gross measure of school productivity, the test continues to be used for that purpose. This article shows how misleading SAT scores and per-student-expenditure correlations are used to justify spending less money on…

An education professor describes bewildered responses to basic, if annoying, questions he asks regarding education's role and purpose. There is probably no single thing that everyone has to know. Education is a lifetime, seamless experience, connecting individual episodes into an ever-expanding web of meaning, insight, and understanding. Teachers…

Explores changes in students' conceptions about solution chemistry in the context of instruction based on collaboration between a researcher and an experienced teacher attempting to implement strategies from the literature on conceptual change. (ZWH)

Summarizes evidence supporting and refuting myths and common beliefs about alcohol abuse among American Indians. Discusses the prevalence of drinking and alcoholism among Indians, alcohol metabolism, drinking styles, alcohol-related deaths, uncritical use of statistics, alcohol-related child abuse and neglect, sex differences, fetal alcohol…

Identifies some of the erroneous and misleading statements discovered in the three-volume middle and junior high school integrated science text, SCIENCE Interactions. (ZWH)

Explores and documents the frequencies of conceptual difficulties confronted by college students (n=200) seeking to understand the basic processes of cellular respiration. Findings suggest that novices harbor a wide range of conceptual difficulties that constrain their understanding of cellular respiration and many of these conceptual problems…

Presents the Vector Knowledge Test that was designed to see if beginning physics students possess the minimal basic knowledge of vectors that will allow them to proceed with a study of Newtonian mechanics. Concludes that only one-third of the students in a calculus-based introductory course at California Polytechnic had sufficient vector…

Study of strategies and procedures of 170 students and 40 teachers when solving chemical equilibrium problems found misconceptions emerging through: misapplication of Le Chatelier's Principle, use of rote-learning recall, incorrect control of variables, limited use of chemical equilibrium law, lack of mastery of chemical equilibrium principles,…

Decentralization proponents argue that autonomous decision making at the school level will significantly affect teaching and learning, leading to improved outcomes. The problem is to distinguish real autonomous decision making from a degree of managerialism that decentralizes administration, rather than decision making. A five-part analytical…

Discusses some core features of Aristotelian physics and looks at their transformation by first Galileo and then Newton. It shows how the Aristotelian view was rooted in commonsense and indicates the reason that such understandings prove so resistant to physics instruction. Some suggestions are made for guiding effective pedagogy. (Author/PR)

Surveys of 295 undergraduate students in college algebra and precalculus about their perceptions of mathematics found that agreement with some mathematical myths can be reduced with more mathematical preparation of students. Suggests strategies to overcome these myths. (13 references) (MKR)

Offers a strategy for eliminating or at least diminishing students' preconceptions and misconceptions using two inseparable components: a pretest to identify the students' preconceptions and a technique of teaching by comparison between right and wrong responses to remove the preconceptions. (MVL)