Examines the effect of refutation text structure (text that contrasts correct ideas with incorrect ones) on students' misconceptions of Newtonian mechanics, noting that refutation text is efffective in getting students to change their prior misconceptions. Also suggests two ways to help students abandon misconceptions that are not refuted in a…

Reports on the reading processes of seven research physicists using data gathered from a series of interviews and observations. Reveals reading processes permeated with individual purposes and schema. (FL)

Noting that children and adults often hold misconceptions about topics in content area texts, particularly those in the area of science where counter-intuitive notions about how the real world works abound, a study examined the effect of activating students' background knowledge about motion theory prior to asking them to read a physics text.…