An accumulation of research strongly suggests that students come to school with ideas, beliefs and experiences that are relevant to learning targeted science concepts.\u00a0 The cognitive structures they develop by making connections among their everyday observations, societal influences, and previous schooling may promote or hinder student learning. (National Research Council, 2003).\u00a0\u00a0Some experiences lead to strongly held misconceptions that resist change even in the face of instruction that is directly relevant to the concept in question.\u00a0 Eliciting student ideas is important for revealing existing cognitive structures and resulting misconceptions that should be addressed in assessments.<\/p>\n
Several strategies for eliciting student ideas have been used by science teachers and education researchers.\u00a0 We include here a selection of methods with\u00a0brief descriptions\u00a0to point out the utility of each.<\/p>\n
Prediction<\/a><\/p>\n Multiple choice questions<\/a><\/p>\n Concept map<\/a><\/p>\n Regardless of the particular strategy selected, prompts that are effective in eliciting student thinking generally share\u00a0the following features.<\/p>\n Accessible to students<\/a><\/p>\n Clearly target an idea of interest<\/a><\/p>\nPrompt Elements<\/h3>\n