2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Research has shown that many learners come to the classroom with inaccurate knowledge about the scientific concepts they encounter in their lessons. Such inaccurate prior knowledge has been described by terms such as misconceptions, preconceptions, naïve knowledge, alternative conception, and faulty mental models in the learning sciences literature. Misconceptions about basic scientific concepts pose serious challenges to relearning those scientific concepts more accurately. Hence, there is need for them to be challenged and corrected in order for meaningful learning to occur.

The process by which misconceptions are challenged and corrected is known as conceptual change. Many researchers believe that conceptual change involves a deliberate effort and intentionality on the part of the instructor to be achieved. By examining the roles of various factors and instructional techniques, researchers have empirically tested the effects of cognitive, affective, and motivational variables as predictors and mediators of conceptual change. However, there is a paucity of research that has systematically synthesized primary studies that have assessed predictors and mediators of conceptual change. Hence, this study aims to review predicstors and mediators of conceptual change.

We conducted a literature search in multiple stages to extract all the relevant articles for this study. An extensive search through major academic databases of ERIC, Science Direct, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Academic Search Complete, and IEEE Xplore was done. Also, references of key studies were also examined for potential studies. Our search terms include a combination of keywords derived from studies examining the predictive relevance of variables on conceptual change. These keywords were joined by Boolean operators of AND, OR, and NOT and searched using the subject terms only. For example, SU ("conceptual change" OR misconception NOT pregnan*) AND SU (mediat* OR predict*).

The search returned 299 articles. After removing duplicate articles and subjecting the articles to the first filtering phase by reading through the title and abstract, we have 23 articles left. These 23 articles were retrieved and read in the second filtering phase and 13 articles were finally selected to have satisfied our study inclusion criteria.

Relevant information germane to our research objectives was extracted from the articles included. In this work-in-progress study, we will report the comprehensive coding exercise as well as the preliminary outcomes of the analysis of predictors and mediators of conceptual change, other study features, and the instructional implications of the study findings will be discussed as well.