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Embracing Representational Plurality to Bypass Misconceptions in Science Education

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Title: Embracing Representational Plurality to Bypass Misconceptions in Science Education
Language: English
Authors: Fabien Paillusson (ORCID 0000-0002-5740-3463), Matthew Booth (ORCID 0000-0001-8823-3463)
Source: Science & Education. 2025 34(4):1955-1969.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 15
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Evaluative
Descriptors: Science Education, Misconceptions, Teaching Methods, Student Attitudes, Scientific Attitudes, Attitude Change, Ethics, Epistemology, Educational Philosophy, Scientific Literacy, Physics, Evaluative Thinking
DOI: 10.1007/s11191-024-00590-4
ISSN: 0926-7220
1573-1901
Abstract: For the past five decades, the majority of science education has adhered to a pedagogical philosophy which contends that issues in the acquisition and expression of target scientific narratives by learners stem from the existence of "incorrect beliefs" called misconceptions. According to this philosophy, misconceptions must be identified, possibly as early as in childhood, and eradicated with specific interventions to allow the proper scientific knowledge to be acquired. Despite much effort cataloging misconceptions and their associated interventions in different disciplines and sub-branches of these disciplines, misconceptions get still regularly diagnosed in a wide academic population ranging from school pupils to teachers in training, and even experts. In addition to this potential lack of efficacy, the present article puts forward three lines of argument making the case against the adoption of a science pedagogy based on a belief-change strategy in learners. The suggested lines of argument rely on ethical, epistemic, and professional considerations. It is then argued that adopting a pedagogical philosophy based on representational pluralism, in opposition to holding a single "true" scientific story, can both address the three points of concern aforementioned, but also allow learners to bypass misconceptions when making judgements based on their scientific knowledge. Possible applications in physics education are presented.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1482053
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0187498052;nmo01aug.25;2025Aug26.02:35;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0187498052-1">Embracing Representational Plurality to Bypass Misconceptions in Science Education </title> <p>For the past five decades, the majority of science education has adhered to a pedagogical philosophy which contends that issues in the acquisition and expression of target scientific narratives by learners stem from the existence of "incorrect beliefs" called misconceptions. According to this philosophy, misconceptions must be identified, possibly as early as in childhood, and eradicated with specific interventions to allow the proper scientific knowledge to be acquired. Despite much effort cataloging misconceptions and their associated interventions in different disciplines and sub-branches of these disciplines, misconceptions get still regularly diagnosed in a wide academic population ranging from school pupils to teachers in training, and even experts. In addition to this potential lack of efficacy, the present article puts forward three lines of argument making the case against the adoption of a science pedagogy based on a belief-change strategy in learners. The suggested lines of argument rely on ethical, epistemic, and professional considerations. It is then argued that adopting a pedagogical philosophy based on representational pluralism, in opposition to holding a single "true" scientific story, can both address the three points of concern aforementioned, but also allow learners to bypass misconceptions when making judgements based on their scientific knowledge. Possible applications in physics education are presented.</p> <p>Keywords: Philosophy and Religious Studies Philosophy</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-2">Introduction</hd> <p>In Science Education, a misconception is a deeply held belief or intuition that contradicts a scientific narrative that a learner is meant to acquire (Kuczmann, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref1">36</reflink>]). In this article, we use the term <emph>scientific narrative</emph> to refer to a story that provides an explanation of a phenomenon, which often involves scientific notions and terminology, and which is purported to derive from scientific practice. In physics education, very common examples of such narratives include "the 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse was caused by a resonance" (Breithaupt, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref2">18</reflink>]), "Galileo proved that all bodies fall in the same way regardless of their shape and mass" (Freefall, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref3">5</reflink>]) and "the Moon is only a secondary source of light" (The moon's facts for kids, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref4">6</reflink>]). Misconception pedagogy contends that learners at all stages may hold misconceptions, which end up obstructing the proper assimilation of scientific knowledge. On that view, such misconceptions must be identified and replaced by the "target" scientific narrative the learner is going to be assessed on (Kuczmann, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref5">36</reflink>]). Like ailments, misconceptions must be "diagnosed", their causes determined, and then "treated" (Resbiantoro et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref6">49</reflink>]). This can be achieved using pre-class questionnaires or computer-based misconception diagnostic tests, and by implementing strategies to challenge learners who hold the misconceived beliefs. To improve the efficacy of such interventions, misconceptions have been split into distinct categories such as non-scientific beliefs, vernacular misconceptions, factual misconceptions, preconceived notions, and conceptual misunderstandings with a host of identified causes to be addressed, ranging from the familial environment to the kind of media being followed by the learner (Patil et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref7">46</reflink>]). This pedagogical approach has been dominant in Science and Physics Education since at least the 1980s (DiSessa, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref8">25</reflink>]), with little impact on the tenacity with which learners at all levels hold such "incorrect beliefs" (Bani-Salameh, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref9">12</reflink>]; Serhane et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref10">52</reflink>]; Saputra et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref11">50</reflink>]). A proposed solution to this apparent difficulty to obtain long-term acceptance and utilisation of taught scientific narratives has been to catch or prevent the occurrence of misconceptions as early as possible. This might be as early as pre-elementary school or within household settings (Kuczmann, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref12">36</reflink>]). Since the 1990s, however, some science education researchers have pointed out some of the limitations of educational strategies that would be entirely based on misconceptions and their "eradication" (Hammer, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref13">31</reflink>]). In particular, misconception-based strategies tend to promote a conflictual, clinical approach to learning, while at the same time fail to recognise that preconceptions can be used to acquire new knowledge (diSessa, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref14">24</reflink>]) and that holding misconceptions may in some cases be useful (Bascandziev, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref15">13</reflink>]). This has led to the development of more constructivist approaches, encompassed by the notion of conceptual change, in line with Piaget's work where learners' conceptions are construed as a fragmented and inconsistent set of beliefs, or personal theories, which can be leveraged during the acquisition of targeted scientific explanations. Recent works utilising such "phenomenological primitives" (p-prims) or analogies, upon which targeted scientific conceptions may be built, have shown that the two aforementioned limitations could be successfully overcome by using more constructivist approaches while enabling a more coherent understanding of students' answers when confronted to novel problems (Fotou & Abrahams, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref16">28</reflink>]). Some authors make a distinction between beliefs, which can only be inferred when consistency across contexts is demonstrated, and "resources", which are "activated" in a context-dependent manner (Louca et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref17">38</reflink>]; Wittmann et al., [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref18">61</reflink>]).</p> <p>While much less radical than the first approach to misconceptions explored at the beginning of this introduction — i.e., identifying and eradicating incorrect conceptions — the umbrella notion of <emph>conceptual change model</emph> still aims at changing the learners' core beliefs for them to reach the "correct understanding" about a certain phenomenon, namely what we call a scientific narrative. In the classroom, this emphasis on the learner's core beliefs appears to be paramount. For example, in the activity "What makes a scientist a scientist" (Conceptual change model, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref19">4</reflink>]) aiming at instilling conceptual change in learners, the first three steps of the activity are "commit to beliefs", "expose beliefs", and "confront beliefs". Likewise, in a review of the various activities used to induce conceptual change in learners it is explicitly mentioned that (Aydim & Balim, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref20">10</reflink>])"After convincing the students what they thought to be true was wrong, the exact and correct comprehension of concepts are taught to them with the necessary scientific proof and convenient explanations and examples".</p> <p>It still remains unclear whether such approaches grounded in the changing of core beliefs can impact the persistence of "incorrect beliefs" in learners. Recent neuropsychological studies show that the acquisition of scientific knowledge need not necessarily entail the change of previously held conceptions which may be deemed incorrect when tested against certain marking criteria (Zhu et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref21">62</reflink>]). It has been shown that experts in physics activate brain areas associated with inhibition when answering questions related to mechanics (Brault Foisy et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref22">16</reflink>]) or simple electric circuits (Masson et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref23">40</reflink>]). This suggests that misconceptions are not replaced by or remodelled into "correct" scientific conceptions during education, but are maintained and must be momentarily suppressed to allow for the "correct" scientific conceptions to be mobilised. A review of similar findings across all education levels is provided by Mason and Zaccoletti ([<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref24">39</reflink>]). Note that the momentary cognitive suppression of certain representations to answer a target scientific question need not be understood as resulting from a permanent change in core beliefs any more than the momentary suppression of the instinct to hit a ball with one's hands by football players is not indicative of a disability to use their hands outside the football field.</p> <p>Representational pluralism offers a conceptual framework that not only takes into account the aforementioned neuropsychological studies, but also allows a more nuanced appreciation of loaded words such as <emph>knowledge</emph> and <emph>understanding</emph>. It asserts that multiple representations of the same phenomena can co-exist in the mental framework of a learner, even if the two different representations are contradictory. In this view, a pre-existing intuitive representation and a newly acquired scientific representation can also be held simultaneously. For example, the phenomenological perception of the temperature (i.e., coldness or hotness) of objects can be maintained, even after a scientific understanding of the flow of heat is developed (Peyschard & Bitbol, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref25">47</reflink>]). Misconception pedagogy and conceptual change strategies are concerned with the possibility that such pre-existing, intuitive representations may still be activated in certain contexts and can compete with the acquired scientific representations when the learner attempts to make sense of a given situation (e.g., an assessment question), or even that the pre-existing representation may hinder the acquisition of the target scientific representation in the first place.</p> <p>In this article, we explore the possibility that scientific education, and more specifically physics education, need not require conceptual change, i.e., a change in personal beliefs, on the part of the learners. We shall further argue that such requirements may be interpreted to be unethical, unachievable even in principle, and that they are inauthentic. Instead, we contend that pedagogical approaches grounded in the philosophical movement known as "representational pluralism" are more compatible with contemporary scientific practices. It is this pluralism which we claim enables misconceptions to be bypassed in science education, so long as an effort is made by the instructor to contextualise their assessment questions. With the proposed approach, learners will develop assessment literacy that is consistent with modern standards of scientific communication and argumentation.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-3">An Ethical Case Against Belief Change as a Basis for Science Education</hd> <p>If science education actively seeks to alter the beliefs of learners — instead of exposing learners to teaching material and letting them change, or not, their beliefs — then it effectively conflicts with the fundamental rights for freedom of thought and belief. In most countries which provide a compulsory school education to children and which promote further education to adults, these freedoms are often held in high regard. As reminded in Swaine ([<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref26">57</reflink>]), freedom of thought was considered essential and a basis for democracy by prominent historical political figures such as Rosa Luxemburg, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. In his work on liberty, John Stuart Mill places freedom of thought as the very first domain of what he calls "the appropriate region of human liberty" (Mill, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref27">42</reflink>]) (emphases are ours):"It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; <bold>absolute</bold> freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, <bold>scientific</bold>, moral, or theological".We note in the above passage that Mill prescribes that there should be absolute, non contingent, freedom of opinion on subjects including practical applications and the sciences. In a subsequent paragraph, Mill continues:"No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified".Indeed, totalitarian regimes are characterised not only by the authoritative control of behaviours they forcefully obtain, but also by the fact that they aspire to control thoughts and beliefs, the most intimate productions of one's existence. For this reason, many legal frameworks have been developed to safeguard freedom of thought and belief. To illustrate this point more tangibly, we shall briefly mention the UK's Article 9–1 of the Human Rights Act 1998 protecting one's <emph>rights for freedom of thought, belief and religion</emph>. More specifically, it states that"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching practice and observance".As far as the authors' understanding is concerned, and to echo a comment made by Clarke in Clarke ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref28">22</reflink>]), the article does not specify any limiting age below which Human Rights laws such as Article 9 do not apply. An objection could be raised on the basis of Article 2 of Part II. of the Act stating that"No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions".The latter could be interpreted as meaning that children do not have the freedom of thought since their parents can choose their education for them. Indeed, Clarke ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref29">22</reflink>]) did suggest that there could be legal tensions caused by trying to uphold both the freedom of thought for children and the right for parents or carers to choose their education. But here, we wish to stress two points: (a) Article 2 of Part II. of the Act states a <emph>right to education</emph> and not an interdiction of belief (positive right instead of a negative right) or a right for educators to change children's beliefs and (b) for children, this right to education falls on the parents or carer to decide on which <emph>instruction</emph> is to be followed. We wish to stress here that this latter aspect of Article 2 of Part II. of the Act is not in contradiction with upholding Article 9 for children. On its own, merely stating that parents have the right to choose which educational system their children will be subject to does not entail that children do not have the freedom of belief or thought <emph>unless</emph> we presuppose that it is the role of education institutions to change (and probe) the beliefs of learners; which is precisely the point being disputed in this manuscript.</p> <p>As pointed out by Bublitz in Bublitz ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref30">19</reflink>]), Article 9 of the Act unconditionally protects the freedom of thought and beliefs which concern essentially the "inward domain" of an individual, mentioned above by Mill, via Article 9–1 cited above. However, as is expressed in Article 9–2 of the Act, the freedom to <emph>manifest</emph> one's religion or beliefs may be subject to limitations. Consequently, a common concern in upholding freedom of belief for learners, especially in childhood, is that if the belief-change is unsuccessful in specific subjects, then this can lead to actions or inaction that may be considered detrimental to society. Unless the said actions/inaction are unlawful, it is our stance that such radical conclusions to justify unsolicited belief change in learners, most notably children, do not usually follow from a more thorough inspection of the evidence regarding common societal concerns. For example, in light of the inefficacy of communication interventions aimed at parents unwilling to vaccinate their children, it was suggested that vaccine acceptance could be improved by exposing children to more positive messages on vaccines throughout their education (Wilson et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref31">59</reflink>]). A logical issue with this strategy is that it presupposes that this behaviour in adulthood results from an incorrect belief developed in, or maintained from, childhood. Indeed, if vaccine hesitancy is to be deplored, it is unclear that this is related to a lack of education, and, in fact, evidence tends to point to the contrary. In 2019, the Wellcome Global Monitor 2018 (Wellcome, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref32">1</reflink>]) reported that a) high-income regions — with the highest level of education — such as the USA and Western Europe, had lower trust in vaccine safety and efficacy than low-income regions, and b) people who had recently sought scientific information were less likely to strongly or somewhat agree that vaccines are safe compared to people who did not engage with seeking scientific information. Consequently, a potential issue with identifying the failure to instill belief in compulsory educational settings as the cause of something as serious as vaccine hesitancy, is that it may divert from other well-reported causes such as the growing mistrust in public health institutions by both the public (Choi & Fox, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref33">21</reflink>]) and health professionals themselves (Ahmad et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref34">7</reflink>]; Verger et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref35">58</reflink>]). It is not our opinion that such trust can be restored by forcing belief-change in learners whatever their age may be.</p> <p>So far, we have argued that freedom of thought and belief is valued in democratic societies and that we see no reason to not uphold it for learners of any age. That being said, living in democratic societies also involves the possibility of debate allowed by another foundational tenet of democracies, namely, the freedom of expression. In fact, in describing his appropriate region of human liberty Mill contends that (Mill, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref36">42</reflink>])"The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it".More specifically, the legitimacy of democracies as a fair mode of governance rests with the ability to allow public debate, and of course private debate as well. Such debates will inevitably involve trying to change the belief(s) of an audience or an interlocutor. We do not have any problem with such consensual verbal or written jousts between agreeing parties. For example, the very legitimate and serious concerns related to vaccine hesitancy discussed above should be addressed during such debates. Rather, the ethical issue with seeking unsolicited belief-change in a compulsory education setting is that it relies on a subordination relation between the learner and the educator, which, when it is used to change the beliefs of the learner, may effectively constitute an abuse of power which transgresses the fundamental right of freedom of thought the learner should be granted unconditionally. Such remarks on the ethical and legal implications of seeking to change someone else's beliefs do not imply that teaching or education should be discarded altogether. It only hints at the possibility that if the objective of education, or the only means by which education is thought to operate, is belief change, then this seems in conflict with basic Human Rights enshrined in many legal frameworks in contemporary societies.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-4">An Epistemic Case Against Belief Change as a Basis for Science Education</hd> <p>Ethical issues notwithstanding, we may still consider the situation where an educator wishes to change their learners beliefs to fulfill some target pedagogical objectives. The issue we wish to ponder in this section is whether or not this approach is practicable. By <emph>practicable</emph>, we mean the conjunction of two things: actually targeting all "incorrect beliefs" associated with a specific topic in learners by using appropriate interventions, and being able to validate that the sought changes have actually occurred.</p> <p>The first aspect regarding targeting all "incorrect beliefs" stems from the fact that a misconception-based pedagogy can only work if it can list out the entirety of all possible misconstrued phenomena related to a certain subject and then correct those with appropriate interventions (Neidorf et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref37">43</reflink>]). There has been a lot of effort being done to discover and classify these misconceptions in physics (Johnstone et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref38">32</reflink>]; Ceuppens et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref39">20</reflink>]; Nik Daud et al., [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref40">44</reflink>]; Koudelkova & Dvorak, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref41">35</reflink>]; Kaltakci-Gurel & McDermott, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref42">33</reflink>]) and the number of specific interventions to be carried out, be they experimental, conceptual or digital, increases accordingly. The issue is that, given that beliefs are individual and thus may be prone to change depending on cultural trends and personal upbringing, and given that beliefs are also phenomenon-dependent, it seems difficult to assume that the currently identified misconceptions on a given subject cover the entirety of all "incorrect beliefs" that a learner may hold about any specific phenomenon. Even if one assumed that it is possible in principle, the instructor is confronted with the concrete fact that the time allocated to teaching a given subject is limited and not all conceivable phenomena can be evaluated and intervened on in this finite amount of time.</p> <p>The second aspect concerns the validation of the sought changes in the classroom. In epistemology, the distinction between <emph>doxastic</emph> justification and <emph>propositional</emph> justification (or <emph>personal</emph> and <emph>impersonal</emph> justification, respectively) has received significant attention in recent decades. The term propositional (impersonal) justification refers to the possibility that an epistemic agent can have a sufficient epistemic justification to believe a particular proposition without necessarily doing so. The term doxastic justification refers to the sufficient epistemic justification that an agent has for actually believing a particular proposition. Alston clarifies the difference by making a distinction between having "adequate grounds" for a belief and believing based on "adequate grounds" (Alston, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref43">8</reflink>]). According to Korcz, a belief is propositionally justifiable for an agent if they possess at least one reason that would provide sufficient justification for the belief, were the belief based on that reason. A belief is doxastically justified for an agent, however, when they possess at least one reason sufficient to justify the belief <emph>and</emph> they actually hold the belief based on that specific reason (Korcz, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref44">34</reflink>]). The conventional view appears to be that a doxastic justification for a belief must be based on a propositional justification (Kvanvig, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref45">37</reflink>]; Pollock & Cruz, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref46">48</reflink>]; Alston, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref47">8</reflink>]; Korcz, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref48">34</reflink>]; Feldman, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref49">27</reflink>]). This is referred to as the "basing relation" (or "sustaining requirement").</p> <p>In science education, then, are educators to be concerned with learners' providing propositional justifications or doxastic justifications? We claim that there are two main epistemic problems if science educators focus on belief change as evidenced by purported doxastic justifications. First, it is not possible to ascertain whether the stated belief is a genuine belief (at least not in a typical education setting). A learner may state a perfectly true proposition, expressed in the form of a belief, along with a correct (expected) scientific justification, without actually believing the proposition. Second, even if the learner does indeed believe the stated proposition, there is no way to ascertain whether or not this belief is actually based on the provided scientific justification. That is, it is not possible to verify if the basing relation (or sustaining requirement) is met by the learner; it is possible that the learner has used the scientific justification to <emph>rationalise</emph> their belief.</p> <p>Audi makes an important distinction between <emph>doxastic rationalisation</emph> and <emph>propositional rationalisation</emph> (Audi, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref50">9</reflink>]). Doxastic rationalisation describes the situation where (<emph>i</emph>) an agent <emph>A</emph> cites a reason <emph>q</emph> to justify their belief in a proposition <emph>p</emph>; (<emph>ii</emph>) <emph>A</emph> believes <emph>q</emph>; (<emph>iii</emph>) <emph>A</emph> takes <emph>q</emph> to support <emph>p</emph>; but (<emph>iv</emph>) <emph>A</emph>'s belief in <emph>p</emph> is not based on (or sustained by) their belief in <emph>q</emph>. How could the sustaining requirement or basing relation (or lack thereof) be demonstrated? How can an educator ever distinguish between doxastic rationalisation and doxastic justification? We claim that it is not feasible for them to do so. Propositional rationalisation, on the other hand, describes the situation where an agent <emph>A</emph> provides a reasonable justification <emph>q</emph> for a proposition <emph>p</emph> regardless of whether or not they believe in <emph>p</emph> themselves. The act of providing a propositional rationalisation does not necessitate any particular belief to be held by the learner. Propositional rationalisation and propositional justification are effectively one and the same.</p> <p>We argue, therefore, that in science education, the most appropriate expectation is for learners to provide propositional rationalisations or justifications in their responses to assessment questions. The learner must simply demonstrate that a given proposition is scientifically justifiable. That is, to appropriate the wording of Audi, they must try to "make a proposition seem reasonable, by providing a purported justification of it". This attitude seemingly echoes that of <emph>acceptance</emph> put forward in the context of the ethics and pragmatics of belief (Soter, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref51">56</reflink>]). Contrary to the more common definition as the "act of agreeing with something and approving of it" (Acceptance, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref52">2</reflink>]), which may be conflated with belief, a more specific construal of the word states that "to accept that <emph>p</emph> is to have or adopt a policy of deeming, positing or postulating that <emph>p</emph> — that is, of going along with that proposition (either for the long term or immediate purposes only)" (Cohen, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref53">23</reflink>]). In fact, Cohen goes further by stating that, in the scientific context, a scientist (Cohen, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref54">23</reflink>])"must be willing to go along with [an accepted proposition <emph>p</emph>], as a premise for his predictions, explanations, further research, etc., and an involuntary belief that <emph>p</emph> would not be an adequate substitute for the scientist's voluntary acceptance that <emph>p</emph> since it would not involve deductive closure".Thus, here Cohen seems to imply that if a scientist believes a scientific proposition it must be through doxastic justification, but clearly not doxastic rationalisation. Not only is this more in line with standard professional practices related to the communication and dissemination of scientific results (see section 4), it bypasses two problems: assessing the veracity of belief claims, and distinguishing between doxastic justification and doxastic rationalisation. It could be suggested that educators should aim for belief change even though the veracity of belief claims cannot be assessed, or that educators simply cannot avoid seeking to change the beliefs of learners. In the following section, we argue that such claims are not consistent with contemporary scientific practices.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-5">A Professional Case Against Belief Change as a Basis for Science Education</hd> <p>As hinted at in the previous section, communication standards in scientific practice do not appeal in any shape or form to the belief of the reader or the authors. The authors or the readers may of course hold certain beliefs, but those beliefs are not going to be appealed to when laying out the case for a specific claim in a scientific communication. To illustrate this point, we summarise below the freely accessible guidelines for referees from the journal Physics Review Letters (APS, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref55">3</reflink>]).</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> Briefly summarise the manuscript.</item> <p></p> <item> Assess the originality and significance of the results.</item> <p></p> <item> Assess the technical quality and scientific rigor of the manuscript.</item> <p></p> <item> Assess the manuscript presentation.</item> <p></p> <item> Assess the content and quality of the Supplemental Material.</item> </ulist> <p>As can be seen above, no reference to any belief in a certain phenomenon or explanation is mentioned in these guidelines. That is because the referee's role is to evaluate a research paper in their field of expertise and to situate it within the relevant historical and contemporary literature. This implies automatically that a referee's work, and the appreciation of the quality of a research communication, is relative to a specific community of practice. Using the language of the previous section, scientific communication thus paradigmatically operates by using propositional justifications.</p> <p>While scientific discussions and debates may span multiple generations and countless well-thought through and articulated communications, testing for misconceptions in pedagogy and in neuroscience does the exact opposite by requiring very fast responses from the subjects so as to trigger reasoning shortcuts or heuristics in them. Interestingly, recent neuroscience research (Zhu et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref56">62</reflink>]) on STEM undergraduates at university shows that on the one hand, intuitive misconceptions may persist in the brain even after the acquisition of scientific knowledge but, on another hand, these intuitive "incorrect beliefs" may be inhibited in the trained practitioner to provide the expected answer in accordance with the assessed scientific theories (Brault Foisy et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref57">17</reflink>]). An advanced hypothesis is that intuitive conceptions may be activated first upon perceiving the data with sense organs, but then may appropriately be inhibited in favor of the acquired scientific knowledge when the observed phenomenon appears incongruous with the preconception. In other words, undergraduates trained in a scientific curriculum may naturally apply a mode of formulating and communicating their answers which matches the description of propositional justifications we gave in the previous section. It is worth noting that the prompt inhibition and proper usage of scientific theories were not found in younger participants in primary or secondary school (Zhu et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref58">62</reflink>]). This may stem from developmental aspects whereby the inhibition of preconceptions may not be as potent in children and teenagers as it is in adults, or from the fact that the teaching and assessment methods are radically different in primary and secondary school when compared to university. We venture to suggest, from our own experience, that primary and secondary school teaching has a tendency to be more "fact-based", in that it requires the learner to memorise a large list of facts and formulas assumed to be absolute uncontextualised truths, while university teaching, at the very least in physics, focuses on the memorisation of a very succinct list of principles within a specific theory that are to be applied to a wide range of model cases and novel situations.</p> <p>Another aspect of professional practice which in our view goes against grounding scientific education in belief change is that, as described earlier, misconceptions are attached to phenomena which occur in very specific situations (e.g., attaching a ping-pong ball to the bottom of a beaker via a string and then immersing it in water). This implies therefore the identification and book-keeping of all these specific situations alongside the preconceptions expressed by learners which are purportedly contradicting scientific facts. The scientific fact may be an actual interpretation or explanation of what is occurring in the system under study or a prediction about the outcome of an experiment. The problem with this point of view is at least twofold: First, the scientific literature comprises multiple valid explanations or interpretations of the very same phenomenon when contextualised within specific theories or models. For example, Rutherford's experiment of the scattering of alpha particles across a gold sheet is equally well captured by a classical description involving Newtonian mechanics and electric forces and by a quantum description involving photons and relativistic particles. Second, actual experiments may give different outcomes to the one predicted for many different reasons, which do not necessarily coincide with a misunderstanding of the contemporary scientific literature. For example, Copernicus' idea of a Heliocentric universe was rejected in his time on the basis that there was no observable parallax of the background of the fixed stars. This is understood today as being due to optical instruments not being fit for purpose at the time. Finally, conceiving scientific education as a mere accumulation of metaphysically loaded scientific facts is ultimately antithetic to the modern scientific ethos which celebrates, both in schools and in the public sphere, the challenging of very well established ideas and theories which have paved the development of science in the past few centuries.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-6">The Case for Representational Pluralism in Scientific Education</hd> <p>In the previous sections, we have introduced the notions of doxastic and propositional justifications and argued that a misconception-based pedagogy assumes doxastic justifications to be the sole form of possible justification in the expression of scientific propositions, thereby legitimising the "belief change" objective at its core. By contrast, we supplied various arguments from professional practice of science to claim that science communication operates principally and, in fact, ideally using propositional justifications. Additionally, from a cognitive science perspective, especially related to beliefs, there is mounting evidence that there can exist representational (mental) states which are not belief states (Silva, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref59">54</reflink>]). Such cognitive states fall under the umbrella of representational pluralism. More specifically, quoting the precise definition used in Silva ([<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref60">54</reflink>]), we shall term representational pluralism the following"There are representational mental states that represent the fact that <emph>p</emph> that are neither belief that <emph>p</emph> states nor constituted by belief that-<emph>p</emph> states".Thus, from a cognitive science perspective, the phenomenon of representational pluralism constitutes a necessary and sufficient condition for one to employ propositional justifications pertaining to representations of the world. The argument can be made stronger by analysing one of the alleged characteristic features of belief according to Zimmerman ([<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref61">63</reflink>]), namely, that if <emph>A</emph> believes that <emph>p</emph>, then <emph>A</emph> must be surprised or "shocked" to discover that not-<emph>p</emph>. If such a feature is to be taken seriously in education, then it stands to reason that intentionally altering learners' beliefs to match target scientific narratives is bound to generate cognitive traumas of various magnitudes, which are unnecessary for all the reasons we have already laid out in the previous sections. By contrast, learners may hold a specific mental state relation with a proposition <emph>p</emph> as representing the world or a part of it, but which is in a sense weaker than a belief state. These weaker relations can be linked to intuition, memory, hope, plausibility, "seemingness" (it seems that <emph>p</emph>), or "conceivableness" (it is conceivable that <emph>p</emph>) which allow human agents to maintain a certain "distance" or neutral attitude towards some of the metaphysical implications of the stated propositions.</p> <p>In practice, taking the phenomenon of representational pluralism into account in the physics or science classroom should not necessitate dramatic changes. If anything, the mindset of educators is what might be the most significant obstacle to its implementation. Indeed, assessing and teaching in concordance with representational plurality requires the educator to specify how a given phenomenon is explained within a given theoretical framework. There is no required commitment to holding a single "truest" narrative. Consider as examples the scientific narratives discussed in the Introduction section. As it turns out, there is strong evidence that "the 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse was caused by a resonance" is likely incorrect (Green & Unruh, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref62">29</reflink>]), the fact that "Galileo proved that all bodies fall in the same way regardless of their shape and mass" is disputed on the ground that it was empirically unfeasible in his time (Sardelis, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref63">51</reflink>]; Oh, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref64">45</reflink>]) and, finally, the Moon's albedo is estimated to be between 10 and 13% (Matthews, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref65">41</reflink>]), meaning that it absorbs a large amount of radiation (light) that it radiates back in <emph>all frequencies</emph> mostly in the form of black-body radiation (Baldwin, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref66">11</reflink>]). In addition, the Moon has been shown to outshine the Sun in the range of Gamma rays (Siegel, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref67">53</reflink>]), thereby undermining the claim that "the Moon is only a secondary source of light". If anything, these examples illustrate the importance of contextualisation, and the necessity of avoiding over-generalisations and over-assertiveness, especially when communicating to learners. This approach reminds learners that the scientific procedures and theories being taught are not "true" in some absolute sense, but instead are merely formulas and models that are useful in certain contexts. The aphorism commonly attributed to George E. P. Box states that "all models are wrong, but some are useful" (Box [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref68">15</reflink>]). This notion is similar to the "minimal pluralist thesis" formulated by Bélanger et al., whereby learners typically "make use of a plurality of distinct and at least partially incompatible representations about a phenomenon, each having a range of contexts or conditions where it is legitimately or preferentially used" (Bélanger et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref69">14</reflink>]). We would hope that, as opposed to being demoralising, this notion should fill learners with determination and motivation, since it is implied that there is room left for them to make their own meaningful improvements and contributions to science in the future. For example, at a descriptive level, the phenomenon of gravity may be construed as a force-at-a-distance between any two objects within a Newtonian mechanics framework, while it is conceived as the effect of masses dynamically distorting the fabric of space-time in Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Neither descriptions are wrong (nor "true"), both have their place in a conceptual description of the phenomenon of gravity, and both have their limitations. Hence, instead of prompting learners to provide an answer to "what is gravity?" as if there were a single absolute answer to that question, an educator would have to specify the context with a question of the form "how is gravity characterised in Newtonian mechanics?". That is, in line with (El-Hani & Mortimer, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref70">26</reflink>]), we believe that the goal of scientific education should focus on developing understanding about scientific theories and models and not on learners' beliefs. This is further emphasised by Cohen in his discussion of acceptance (understood here as propositional justification) in scientific scientific practice whereby he states that (Cohen, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref71">23</reflink>])"Perhaps there is not <emph>much</emph> harm in the scientist in the end believing that <emph>p</emph> as well as accepting that <emph>p</emph>. But he would do better to school himself into practicing a greater practical detachment".and Soter to contend that acceptance is a <emph>doxastic response modulation</emph> (Soter, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref72">56</reflink>]), precisely allowing the said distance to exist. Smith and Siegel ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref73">55</reflink>]) take a similar position and outline the following four criteria for understanding.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> <bold> Connectedness </bold> Understanding requires connections to be made between different but related concepts and ideas.</item> <p></p> <item> <bold> Sense-making </bold> Understanding involves making sense of, or attributing meaning to, concepts.</item> <p></p> <item> <bold> Application </bold> "A person can be said to understand a concept or idea if he/she can apply that understanding appropriately in both academic and non-academic settings".</item> <p></p> <item> <bold> Justification </bold> Understanding "must involve a coherent appraisal of at least some of the reasons that justify a claim, i.e., those considerations that render the claim <emph>worthy</emph> of belief".</item> </ulist> <p>Together, criteria 1. and 2. describe understanding as making sense of concepts, making connections between related concepts and, presumably, making sense of those connections. Since concepts are constituents of theories, and similar concepts are used in different theories, contextualisation is an essential aspect of science education. With regards to criteria 3, which includes a direct quotation from Smith and Siegel ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref74">55</reflink>]), we would argue that, given the phenomenon of representational pluralism, deciding which representation is the most appropriate in a novel, non-academic setting goes beyond understanding and into the realms of mastery. As pointed out by Wittmann et al., "Our choice of model affects how we interpret what we observe" (Wittmann et al., [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref75">61</reflink>]). In "When Maps Become the World" (Winther, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref76">60</reflink>]), Winther makes an analogy with maps: maps are "abstractions discarding detail, focusing only on essential features of the territory". Which features are deemed essential enough to be included depends on the intended purpose of the cartographer, that is, maps are interest-dependent. The degree to which a given map is appropriate in a given situation is also interest-dependent, and comparing multiple maps of the same territory requires a pragmatic analysis. The same is true for representations and the scientific narratives concerning them. For example, as discussed above, the scientific narrative stating that "The Moon is not a primary source of light" is very successful at explaining the phases of the Moon; but completely fails to explain the light received from the Moon in the infrared, microwave or gamma ray frequency ranges. In mathematics education, word problems are thought to assist learners in making connections between the <emph>real world</emph> and the mathematical concepts being taught in the classroom. Yet, despite their practical pedagogical value, solving such problems may require the mobilisation of aptitudes beyond mathematics and physics, and learners often need to build assessment literacy — experience of what is expected of them through practice. We would therefore reject the claim that if a learner understands a concept then he/she can apply it appropriately, and instead propose the more cautious claim that if a learner can apply a concept appropriately, then they can be said to have demonstrated an understanding of that concept.</p> <p>Criteria 4., which also includes a direct quotation from Smith and Siegel (emphasis in original) (Smith & Siegel, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref77">55</reflink>]) is consistent with propositional justification as opposed to doxastic justification; the phrasing "worthy of belief" implies that belief is not a necessary condition for understanding.</p> <p>Given the above discussion, it appears to us that the four criteria outlined by Smith and Siegel can be translated into four maxims, similar to those developed in the context of effective communication by Grice ([<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref78">30</reflink>]), which outline the principles followed by effective science educators.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> <bold> Maxim of Contextualisation </bold> Educators should avoid obscurity and ambiguity; concepts should be contextualised as much as possible.</item> <p></p> <item> <bold> Maxim of Application </bold> Educators should provide opportunities for learners to apply concepts outside of the context in which they were originally presented.</item> <p></p> <item> <bold> Maxim of Propositional Justification </bold> Educators should provide <emph>propositional</emph> justification(s) for all scientific narratives being proposed.</item> </ulist> <p>Anecdotally, the authors have exchanged with some physics educators from the secondary and higher education systems on the issue of contextualisation and question-phrasing, and the above proposal (Maxim of Contextualisation) is often met with the comment that "it provides (too much of) a hint to students". This remark may betray a commitment to fact-based and conceptual change learning whereby only one view must be upheld as a sort of absolute truth. Instead, there is a strong possibility that a non-contextualised question such as "what is gravity?" may prompt students to rely on the fraught misconceptions that belief-change educators are so wary of, while a contextualised question such as "how is gravity characterised in Newtonian mechanics?" provides two essential features for a misconception-free assessment: on the one hand, it clarifies the preconditions for the student and assessor to agree on the correct answer by specifying the theoretical framework within which to answer, and on the other hand, this specification of "Newtonian mechanics" encourages the learner to access their scientific knowledge of Newtonian mechanics, instead of mobilising strongly personal preconceived notions about gravity.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-7">Conclusion</hd> <p>In this article, we have provided various arguments against a science education solely focused on the objective of making belief change occur in students in the attempt of eliminating misconceptions. More specifically, we have argued against such an educational philosophy on ethical, epistemic, and (scientific) professional practice grounds. With regards to addressing misconceptions in science education, we have instead argued that, if taken seriously, representational pluralism unlocks a picture of scientific education whereby students learn scientific models and theories as provisional, or partial, representations of the world that may not all be compatible in every scenario and where the learner skillfully swaps from one model or theory to another as the situation calls for it. One advantage to commit to such a picture is that it avoids the sempiternal "forget everything you have learnt so far on this subject" that starts every science class at the beginning of the year in the usual "fact-based" delivery approach. Another advantage that we have eluded to previously is that it is much closer to actual scientific practice, where a specific explanation of a phenomenon is always subject to being reconsidered no matter how successful it appears to be or how entrenched it is in the community. Nurturing learners' ability to utilise the phenomenon of representational pluralism would also contribute to foster the open-mindedness, humility, and intellectual flexibility that are often required to find or recognise original solutions to challenging problems.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-8">Author Contribution</hd> <p>Both authors contributed equally to the writing of this manuscript.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-9">Data Availability</hd> <p>None.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-10">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187498052-11">Ethical Approval</hd> <p>The preparation of this manuscript did not require any ethical approval.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-12">Consent to Participate</hd> <p>The preparation of this manuscript did not require human participants.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-13">Conflict of Interest</hd> <p>The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.</p> <hd id="AN0187498052-14">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0187498052-15"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref32" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> (2018). 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  Data: Embracing Representational Plurality to Bypass Misconceptions in Science Education
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Fabien+Paillusson%22">Fabien Paillusson</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5740-3463">0000-0002-5740-3463</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Matthew+Booth%22">Matthew Booth</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8823-3463">0000-0001-8823-3463</externalLink>)
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Science+%26+Education%22"><i>Science & Education</i></searchLink>. 2025 34(4):1955-1969.
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  Data: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
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  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 15
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Evaluative
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Science+Education%22">Science Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Misconceptions%22">Misconceptions</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teaching+Methods%22">Teaching Methods</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Attitudes%22">Student Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Scientific+Attitudes%22">Scientific Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Attitude+Change%22">Attitude Change</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Ethics%22">Ethics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Epistemology%22">Epistemology</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Philosophy%22">Educational Philosophy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Scientific+Literacy%22">Scientific Literacy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Physics%22">Physics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Evaluative+Thinking%22">Evaluative Thinking</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1007/s11191-024-00590-4
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0926-7220<br />1573-1901
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: For the past five decades, the majority of science education has adhered to a pedagogical philosophy which contends that issues in the acquisition and expression of target scientific narratives by learners stem from the existence of "incorrect beliefs" called misconceptions. According to this philosophy, misconceptions must be identified, possibly as early as in childhood, and eradicated with specific interventions to allow the proper scientific knowledge to be acquired. Despite much effort cataloging misconceptions and their associated interventions in different disciplines and sub-branches of these disciplines, misconceptions get still regularly diagnosed in a wide academic population ranging from school pupils to teachers in training, and even experts. In addition to this potential lack of efficacy, the present article puts forward three lines of argument making the case against the adoption of a science pedagogy based on a belief-change strategy in learners. The suggested lines of argument rely on ethical, epistemic, and professional considerations. It is then argued that adopting a pedagogical philosophy based on representational pluralism, in opposition to holding a single "true" scientific story, can both address the three points of concern aforementioned, but also allow learners to bypass misconceptions when making judgements based on their scientific knowledge. Possible applications in physics education are presented.
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  Data: 2025
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  Data: EJ1482053
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        Value: 10.1007/s11191-024-00590-4
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        PageCount: 15
        StartPage: 1955
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        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Misconceptions
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      – SubjectFull: Teaching Methods
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      – SubjectFull: Student Attitudes
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      – SubjectFull: Scientific Attitudes
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      – TitleFull: Embracing Representational Plurality to Bypass Misconceptions in Science Education
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