| Popis: |
Despite their potential, some of the online explainer videos for physics present misconceptions as scientifically correct explanations. Even so, some of these videos achieve good ratings on YouTube. A possible reason is that explainer videos with misconceptions foster an “illusion of understanding”—the mistaken belief that a topic has been understood. In particular, misconceptions close to everyday experiences might appear more attractive than scientifically correct explanations. This experimental study (N = 149 physics learners with a low prior knowledge) was conducted to research this effect. Two explainer videos were developed to be comparable in terms of comprehensibility and duration. The explanatory approach was the only difference between the two videos. While the experimental group watched a video introducing the concept of force using misconceptions, the control group watched a scientifically correct video. In the posttest, the experimental group believed that the video including misconceptions was scientifically correct, that they understood the concept, and that they would not require further instruction—indicators of an illusion of understanding. The video was perceived as significantly more understandable than the scientifically correct video (d = 0.42). Also, the experimental group learned significantly more erroneous knowledge about the misconception than the control group about the scientifically correct concept (𝜼2 = 0.11). We argue that this might become problematic (a) in physics instruction because students who have watched a misleading video might regard further teaching in school as irrelevant, and (b) learners might tend to rate videos including misconceptions better on an online platform like YouTube. |
