A line of argument for innovation in teaching and assessment starting from students' conceptions and misconceptions in learning processes

Abstract

Different people can have different notions of beliefs, knowledge, assessment, and other conceptions. Such prejudices influence learning and teaching. It can be argued that all students act under, at least, tacit understanding when they select the terms knowledge or beliefs to exchange their ideas or intentions with students and teachers. Surely, students, teachers and researchers) share certain views of knowing and believing, views that arise from similar cultural or social backgrounds or educational experiences. One goal of this contribution is to raise these often tacit conceptions to more explicit levels and to summarise some of the investigations carried out related to the effects on learning. First, we will give a general framework concerning perspectives on knowing and believing that has guided our research. As with Chinn and Brewer (1993), we feel that it is important to make our personal view of the relationship between knowledge and beliefs public, so that its potential influence on the outcome of the study can be judged more readily. Further, a summary is given of how the students surveyed articulated their notions of knowledge and beliefs, and what we concluded generally. This experiment was repeated with participants of the Montpellier conference. Furthermore, explaining the notion of misconceptions and scrutinising its implications for education is another goal of this contribution. It is often heard that it is easier to learn something than to unlearn the same. In a next part, we will clarify the ‘overall assessment prophecy’ and its implications for learning. Also students' conceptions and attitudes towards assessment will be discussed. In the final part, we will elaborate on how to cope with current knowledge and beliefs. We will argue that teaching should become the art of supporting student learning as transformative learning.