Friend or Foe? Common Sense in Science Education from the Perspective of History and Philosophy of Science

Abstract

Currently there are two divergent views about the role of common sense in science learning. Educators who side with the notion of restructuring view science learning as an incremental process based upon the student’s prior knowledge of everyday physical phenomena. On the other hand, for educators who embrace reconceptualization, science education is concerned with conceptual change against common sense. Although there are plenty of studies pertaining to this topic using cognitive psychology and psychometrics, it is rare for educators to take history and philosophy of science into account for determining the role of common sense in science education. The objective of this article is to fill this vacuum by introducing two perspectives to the relationship between common sense and science concepts, namely, trumping common sense by science and trumping nonsense by common sense. Numerous examples reveal that although certain common sense approaches seem to be detrimental to science learning, which favor learning by reconceptualization, debunking misconceptions could also be built upon common sense beliefs borrowed from other domains.