How do children develop theories about scientific phenomena and how can we best scaffold this learning? This stream of research examines children’s misconceptions and the acquisition of scientific knowledge. Our works seek to find out the best ways to promote children’s science knowledge in the early years.

Within this line of work we investigate: 1) children’s misconceptions about scientific concepts and their scientific reasoning skills; 2) the role of conceptual information and exploration in scientific belief revision; 3) the types of scaffolding and interventions that promote children’s ability to control variables in an experimental setting. We ask these questions both in a laboratory setting and in the classroom.

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