Misconception Banks

 

Dimension 1 of The Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review (Coe et al., 2020) focuses on understanding the content. Element 1.4 specifically addresses “knowledge of common student strategies, misconceptions and sticking points in relation to the content you are teaching.” Misconceptions are common mistakes that are often made by many, or most learners, in contrast to one or two students making an error in their work. It is important for teachers to be aware of misconceptions when planning and designing lessons but also to be responsive when misconceptions arise.

Question banks contain a consistent set of questions (and answers) focusing on the specified knowledge that forms the curriculum. The question banks can be used at different points in the learning process, to check for understanding or long-term learning with recall. Question banks should be stored in a shared space for staff to access and they can be used to support teacher workload. Similar to question banks, are misconception banks: a resource which contains a collection of misconceptions for each unit, concept, or lesson.

Below is an example of a misconception bank for GCSE history, containing misconceptions based on the unit focusing on Germany in the years 1918-1933 with the rise of the Nazi party.

The Nazi party was founded by Anton Drexler, not Adolf Hitler. Students often refer to Hitler as the founder of the Nazi party, but this is untrue (he was the 55th member to join). Some learners do not realise that the Nazis did not start World War I, the party was not established until after the war in 1919. Hitler was not German; he was born in Austria (German speaking). The Nazis did not invent antisemitism. There are examples of hostility and abusive treatment of the Jews throughout history. It is worth explaining this to classes for context. Other minorities were targeted by the Nazi party, examples of these should be explored in addition to treatment of the Jewish people. Some students hold the belief that the Nazi party was always considered evil and were hated by all. Although they did receive opposition, the party certainly had a lot of support and momentum with the rise of extremism.

Below is another example of a misconception bank, from the study of the novel ‘Frankenstein’ in English Literature.

Frankenstein is the name of the scientist and creator, not the monster, but students can confuse these as the monster has no name. Victor Frankenstein did not live in a grand castle; this misconception has been created through film versions of the story. Frankenstein was not a ‘crazy old scientist,’ he was young, intelligent, and ambitious. ‘The monster is stupid’. This is not true in the text but it is how the monster has become viewed in stage and film productions with this misconception becoming embedded in modern culture. Frankenstein created an ‘evil monster,’. The monster was initially innocent until learning about death and destruction from humankind.

Of course, the learners’ common misconceptions will vary based on the curriculum and year group. (However, when topics or themes are revisited over multiple years, it may be worth including misconceptions from earlier years!) These banks can be a valuable tool to teachers, whether teaching the curriculum for the first time or a seasoned veteran teacher. There are several reasons why misconception banks can support both teachers and learners.

Support early career teachers (ECTs)

Experience in the classroom can provide teachers with a deeper understanding of the curriculum content and increased confidence with lesson planning and delivery. After teaching curriculum content more than once, either the following year or with different classes, teachers quickly realise what the common misconceptions are. This awareness allows the teacher to carefully plan lessons and explanations to prevent the misconceptions or tackle them. A trainee or newly qualified teacher may not be aware of the misconceptions that tend to occur, therefore access to a misconceptions bank can provide that useful information and insight.

Misconception banks can be shared with learners

A misconception bank can be openly discussed with learners in a lesson. In doing so, a student may realise something they previously believed to be true is incorrect, thus allowing the error to be rectified. There can often also be some comfort to be had for students when they learn that their peers may hold the same misconceptions as their own. The purpose of sharing a misconception bank with a class can be to tackle these misconceptions before they have a chance to become entrenched in long term memory. A misconception can be difficult to deal with once embedded.

Prevention is better than cure

In the fields of health and medicine the concept that ‘prevention is better than cure’ focuses on stopping disease or illness before it arrives. This doctrine can also be applied in the classroom using misconception banks. The Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review highlights the prominence of misconceptions in the classroom noting, ‘student misconceptions around particular ideas are predictable and inevitable.’ Instead of the teacher seeing the same mistakes repeated by different students, the teacher can intervene. This shares similarities with pre-emptive feedback, where the teacher is preventing the students from making a mistake in the first place rather than simply providing feedback after the mistake has occurred.

Conclusion

There are likely other ways misconception banks can be used and adapted by teachers, either to support lesson planning or student learning. The Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence Review adds, “Knowing students’ likely misconceptions has no benefit unless lessons and delivery are structured to address them.” Considering these points, teachers can plan for misconceptions to prepare or better still, prevent them becoming embedded in students’ long-term memory—a misconceptions bank is one way to do so.

 

Reference and additional resources

Coe, R., Rauch, C.J., Kime, S., & Singleton, D. (2020). Great Teaching Toolkit: Evidence review. Evidence Based Education. https://evidencebased.education/great-teaching-toolkit-evidence-review/

Teachers may find the Wikipedia article, List of common misconceptions, helpful in starting to compile a misconception bank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions