TY - JOUR
T1 - Concept Inventories
T2 - Predicting the Wrong Answer May Boost Performance
AU - Talanquer, Vicente
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
PY - 2017/12/12
Y1 - 2017/12/12
N2 - Several concept inventories have been developed to elicit students' alternative conceptions in chemistry. It is suggested that heuristic reasoning may bias students' answers in these types of assessments toward intuitively appealing choices. If this is the case, one could expect students to improve their performance by engaging in more analytical reasoning. Research has shown that analytical reasoning is activated when people experience metacognitive difficulty or conflict. This study presents the results of an intervention designed to trigger one of such experiences by asking students to make predictions about the wrong answers most commonly selected by unreflective students. Major findings show that this simple prompt has a significant positive impact on students' answers, regardless of their academic performance in the course. The effects, however, are not uniform across different topics.
AB - Several concept inventories have been developed to elicit students' alternative conceptions in chemistry. It is suggested that heuristic reasoning may bias students' answers in these types of assessments toward intuitively appealing choices. If this is the case, one could expect students to improve their performance by engaging in more analytical reasoning. Research has shown that analytical reasoning is activated when people experience metacognitive difficulty or conflict. This study presents the results of an intervention designed to trigger one of such experiences by asking students to make predictions about the wrong answers most commonly selected by unreflective students. Major findings show that this simple prompt has a significant positive impact on students' answers, regardless of their academic performance in the course. The effects, however, are not uniform across different topics.
KW - Assessment
KW - Chemical Education Research
KW - First-Year Undergraduate/General
KW - High School/Introductory Chemistry
KW - Metacognition
KW - Misconceptions/Discrepant Events
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85038243880&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85038243880&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00427
DO - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00427
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85038243880
SN - 0021-9584
VL - 94
SP - 1805
EP - 1810
JO - Journal of Chemical Education
JF - Journal of Chemical Education
IS - 12
ER -