Using refutational text in mathematics education

Abstract

Refutational text is one of the many instructional techniques that have been proposed to be used in education as a way to achieve effective learning. The aim of refutational text is to transform misconceptions into conceptions that are in line with current scientific concepts. This is done by explicitly stating a misconception, refuting it, and providing a correct conception. It has been applied in various curricular domains, and seems to be effective in inducing cognitive conflicts in learners and remediating misconceptions. In this article we first discuss the design principles and the theoretical underpinnings of refutational text. Then we briefly review the existing empirical research, both in general and specifically within the domain of mathematics education. Next, we zoom in on a series of studies we conducted in which refutational text was used to improve the interpretation of box plots. In these studies we focused on one very persistent misinterpretation of box plots, the area misinterpretation, which we tried to remediate using refutational text. We found that students who were exposed to refutational text scored significantly better on a box plot interpretation test than students being exposed to an instructional text in which no misconceptions were explicitly mentioned or refuted. We end with a discussion of theoretical and methodological issues for future research and propose recommendations for mathematics educators.