Magnetic Misconceptions in Kindergarten: Prior Conceptions, Conceptual Change, and the Role of Sociocultural Background

Abstract

Research on early childhood science education has shown that young children often hold persistent alternative conceptions about magnetism, yet the relationship between sociocultural background and the qualitative structure of these misconceptions remains underexplored. This study investigates four magnetism misconceptions, animistic attribution, the all-metals belief, the permeability misconception, and the size-strength equation, among 50 Greek kindergarten children from two contrasting sociocultural groups: 25 Roma children from low sociocultural environments and 25 general-population children from middle-to-high sociocultural backgrounds. A qualitative-dominant mixed methods design was employed, combining individual diagnostic clinical interviews before and after instruction with field observations collected during a six-lesson Inquiry-Based Learning Teaching-Learning Sequence. Children’s responses were analysed through a four-category reasoning scheme: absent framework, perceptual-associative reasoning, empirical reasoning, and protoscientific reasoning. Findings show that the two groups entered instruction with qualitatively different epistemic configurations. Following the intervention, surface accuracy improved substantially in both groups, but the depth of conceptual change differed: Roma children mainly achieved empirical revision based on observed experience, whereas general-population children more often developed protoscientific causal explanations. The size-strength misconception was universally held and revised through vivid disconfirmation, while the all-metals misconception remained the most resistant. The findings highlight the need for misconception-targeted, sequential, and socioculturally responsive early science instruction.