{"pk":29305,"title":"The Importance of Explanations in Guided Science Activities","subtitle":null,"abstract":"This study examined whether embedding explanations in guided activities promotes conceptual change about a physicalscience concept. One common misconception that children have is that heavy objects fall at a faster rate than light ones.We used a pre-, post-, and delay test design to address this misconception. Forty 5-year-old children were assigned to oneof two conditions: a guided play activity that included an explanation about gravity, or the same guided play activity butwith no explanation provided. Childrens explanations improved immediately at post-test (p =.001, 95% CI [0.58, 2.33])and after a one-week delay test (p ¡.001, 95% CI [1.23, 2.95]) when the explanation about gravity was embedded in theactivity. There was no improvement at post-test (p =.36) or delay-test (p =.93) when children completed the activity only.This study shows that conceptually rich explanations are an effective pedagogical tool for promoting belief revision inchildren.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Member Abstracts","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8gj9110k","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Vaunam","middle_name":"","last_name":"Venkadasalam","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Toronto","department":""},{"first_name":"Nicole","middle_name":"","last_name":"Larsen","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Toronto","department":""},{"first_name":"Patricia","middle_name":"","last_name":"Ganea","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Toronto","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2019-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/29305/galley/19176/download/"}]}