Students, as well as teachers, often learn what makes sense to them, even when it is wrong. This is a problem. If teachers carry such misconceptions themselves, or are unaware of common misconceptions their students may have, their attempts at effective teaching may be undermined. We sought a quick, quantitative way of identifying student misconceptions in secondary science. We examined the most common wrong answers given by students on a multiplechoice test to see how identified items compared to misconception questions from the literature. For the item to be studied greater than 50% of students had to choose the same wrong answer.

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2017

• Date of Conference: 26-29 June, 2017
• DOI: 10.2053/CICE.2017.0191
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-908320-83-4
• Conference Location: University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada