Students’ Misconceptions in Psychology: Review

1. Research: Question or problem

The motive of this study was to examine and explore if the true or false format that is commonly used to evaluate misconception amplifies students’ level of misconceptions (Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p. 62).

2. Introduction

The introduction pointed out the importance of using prior knowledge to make sense of new knowledge, however a study revealed that when previous knowledge refutes new information it notably makes learning new information difficult and complicated (Lipson, 1982, as citied in Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p. 62). The authors argued that student will finish the introductory psychology course with their false beliefs unchanged unless some powerful intervention help to challenge the false beliefs (2012, p.62.). Also, the authors argued that to change a misconception, students must be presented with useful and credible alternatives, which they will understand (Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p.63).

The true or false format has been attacked for using outdated or unrelated items and items with no content validity to introductory text (Griggs & Ransdell, 1987; Lamal, 1979, as cited in Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p, 63). Another testing format used by some researchers called two-item forced choice aid to examine whether students both receive the accurate claim and reject the inaccurate claim when simultaneously showed two alternatives (Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p. 64). The authors decided to compare true/false format with the forced choice format; the result will determine if different testing method intensify students’ misconceptions.

3. Methodology

The participants of this study were 155 female students from a class total of 164; the participants were primary Caucasian, traditional college age freshmen, and introductory psychology students (Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p. 65). The student had to complete 39 items that was made by Bensley et al; the questionnaire consisted of true/false and forced choice version that was made from previous true and false questionnaires (Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p, 65). The student completed the questionnaire online in less than an hour (Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p. 65).

4. Results

The result clearly stated that almost all the items correctness was greater when the participants were tested with forced choice version instead of the True and false version (Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p. 66). This result further agreed with the authors’ assumption that true and false testing format tend to lead to an overestimation of the preponderance of misconceptions among students (Taylor & Kowalski, 2012, p. 66). Overall, the result revealed that out of