Geografie 2022, 127, 169-193
The perceived difficulty of content matter in geography tuition as a factor determining the origin of misconceptions
, Miroslav Marada
Charles University, Faculty of Science, Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Prague, Czechia
Received September 2021
Accepted February 2022
The study deals with the pupils’ and teachers’ perception of the geography content matter difficulty as a factor determining the origin of misconceptions. We assumed that the incidence of misconceptions will be higher with an increasing perceived difficulty of the content. The first part of the study examines the perceived difficulty of geographical topics by pupils and teachers. The second part is a didactic test verifying the occurrence of misconceptions on topics selected on the basis of perceived difficulty. The results indicate that students perceive the difficulty more “realistically” in line with the assumption that they will solve easy questions with greater success. Teachers’ estimates correspond to the occurrence of expected misconceptions. The study also noted differences in the perception of difficulty in the topics of physical and social geography. The present study underlines the importance of constructivist approaches in working with misconceptions in school.
Funding
This work was supported by Charles University, project No. SVV 260566.
