Refutation Texts Compensate for Detrimental Effects of Misconceptions on Comprehension and Metacomprehension Accuracy and Support Transfer

• Published in: Journal of educational psychology 2019-08, Vol.111 (6), p.957-981
• Main Authors: Prinz, Anja, Golke, Stefanie, Wittwer, Jörg
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Comprehension; Concept Formation; Expository Writing; Female; Foreign Countries; Human; Learning Processes; Male; Metacognition; Misconceptions; Protocol Analysis; Reading Comprehension; Robustness (Statistics); Secondary School Teachers; Statistics; Student Teachers; Teacher Education Programs; Test Construction; Transfer (Learning); Transfer of Training
• ISSN: 0022-0663; 1939-2176
• DOI: 10.1037/edu0000329

Misconceptions impair not only learners' comprehension of a text but also the accuracy with which they judge their comprehension, that is, metacomprehension accuracy. Refutation texts are beneficial to elicit conceptual-change processes and thus to overcome the detrimental impact of misconceptions on comprehension. However, it is unclear whether refutation texts and the conceptual-change processes induced by reading them benefit metacomprehension accuracy in addition to comprehension and how robust these effects are when reading further texts. We conducted an experiment in which we asked 80 student teachers with a varying number of statistical misconceptions to read either a standard or a refutation text on statistics and assessed their comprehension and metacomprehension. In a subsample, we examined the students' conceptual-change processes during reading with the think-aloud methodology. Subsequently, we asked the students to read a research report that required the application of the previously acquired statistical knowledge and assessed their comprehension and metacomprehension again. The results revealed that the refutation text compensated for the detrimental impact of misconceptions on comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy. The think-aloud data indicated that when reading the refutation text, students with more misconceptions engaged in conceptual-change processes more actively, which in turn supported their comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy. Compensatory effects of the refutation text were also found when the students read the research report. In sum, the findings show that refutation texts are beneficial for both comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy and that these benefits transfer to situations where the acquired knowledge has to be put into practice. Educational Impact and Implications Statement Learners often have misconceptions that are well embedded in their knowledge structures and impede their learning. This study demonstrates that refutation texts, which explicitly state and challenge misconceptions in addition to providing the correct explanations, help learners with misconceptions to comprehend the content and to judge their comprehension accurately. Only if learners judge their comprehension accurately, can they engage in effective study activities (e.g., rereading) to improve their understanding. Moreover, this study shows that refutation texts can promote learning from further texts that require the applicati