抽象-大学沃里克（ abstract- universityof warwick）.docVIP

children’s misconceptions and A Look on how Teachers Respond to them Maria Kambouri Institute of Education, University of Warwick Children’s misconceptions affect learning and acquisition of new concepts, especially in science. However, many teachers state that they do not have enough time to identify children’s prior knowledge and possible misconceptions. This research will explore teachers’ responses to children’s misconceptions and identify methods that teachers may use in order to resolve them. Consequently, this research focuses on young children’s misconceptions and investigates cases of early year’s teachers in Cyprus. The investigation includes questionnaires that were sent to 150 schools, two key informant interviews, observations of Cypriot teachers teaching science and two focus groups. Introduction Discussion of the natural sciences has been part of discussion for a very long time and everybody is affected by science in their everyday lives (Devereux, 2000). Nowadays, it is generally accepted that children already have knowledge and scientific concepts, before entering formal education, which will affect their school learning of science. Some of this knowledge is incorrect and remarkably resistant to change (Black Lucas, 1993). Researching children’s misconceptions is crucial and the earlier we study them the better we can work with children to rectify their misconceptions which in turn helps children’s scientific learning to progress (Ravanis Bagakis, 1998). Learners bring into the classroom concepts, which differ from those accepted by the scientific community (Valanides, 2000). He adds that these concepts are called misconceptions and they are not addressed by Cypriot textbooks and traditional instruction. Consequently, in Cyprus, a learner’s conceptual framework is usually not compatible with that of the teachers and the textbooks and this can constitute a significant obstacle to learning as learners may not receive the intended meaning from ins