He found that just showing a video of the laws of motion made people more confident of their answers on a physics quiz, but just as wrong. They would actually have false memories of the video confirming their prior knowledge. What worked was first debunking misconceptions and then replacing them with the truth, even though those videos were rated much more confusing.
We're not teaching blank slates, and if you teach as if you are, you end up with what you (and Derek) described.
Fascinating. There is also research showing (in gossip/news and politics) that by refuting a false statement, the act of repeating the statement actually reinforces it. People ignore the "... IS FALSE" part. I think that plays in here --- my simply consuming a statement, they slightly edit it to fit in with their prior information, or just to make it easier to remember, by dropping the complications.
You need to to drag someone through the mental struggle of unseating their beliefs.
My favorite technique is to find the source of the misconception, and highlight it. Instead of attempting to dispose of an entire complex thought, pick it a part, find the mistake ("you are confusing 'velocity' and 'force' -- they are different things."), and rebuild the correct explanation using the patched piece.
He found that just showing a video of the laws of motion made people more confident of their answers on a physics quiz, but just as wrong. They would actually have false memories of the video confirming their prior knowledge. What worked was first debunking misconceptions and then replacing them with the truth, even though those videos were rated much more confusing.
We're not teaching blank slates, and if you teach as if you are, you end up with what you (and Derek) described.