The role of students’ misconceptions in science teaching and learning

One of the sources of difficulty in science teaching and learning is students’ misconceptions. The misconceptions are quite persistent and interfere with students’ ability to learn. Meanwhile, there is an abundance of research on students’ misconceptions, but the existing knowledge seems to be fragmented. This review paper seeks to contribute to concise knowledge of students’ misconceptions by clarifying its position, disadvantage, and its benefit to science teaching/learning. Specifically, based on papers published from the 1990s, the article aims to address the role of students’ misconceptions in science teaching and learning and the key challenges of integrating students’ misconceptions into teaching strategies. The findings show how students’ misconceptions interfere with the learning process, as well as effective teaching strategies for eliminating them. However, it is also observed that teachers find it challenging to integrate students’ misconceptions into teaching strategies. These insights are necessary for understanding how students’ misconceptions can contribute to science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge framework. Based on the review findings, it is suggested that further research should focus on diagnosing students’ misconceptions in all science subjects. For teaching practice, the article recommends developing booklets of students’ misconceptions (a book illustrates a variety of misconceptions in a particular topic) as a helpful reference for teachers to get to know more about possible existing misconceptions.