Enacted misconceptions: Using embodied interactive simulations to examine emerging understandings of science concepts

In this paper we describe an approach to examining and potentially diagnosing middle school students' misconceptions and emerging understanding about science concepts using immersive and interactive simulations. There are varying views in the literature on the nature of science misconceptions and the role they ought to play in learning interventions, but we focus here on their manifestation in physical activity as opposed to their detection via standardized inventories. We describe a novel framing of incorrect and emerging notions of science, and we illustrate this framing with descriptions of students' embodied interactions in an immersive digital simulation of planetary astronomy. Through live observation and video analysis we identified 9 misconceptions that were made visible through the student's bodily activity rather than through verbal accounts. We conclude with a discussion of how these same diagnostic environments may be used for instruction and remediation.