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Video - Discrepant Events [6:12]
Cognitive dissonance in teaching science refers to the mental discomfort students experience when their prior ideas or intuitions conflict with scientific evidence or explanations. Many students bring everyday misconceptions into the classroom—such as believing that heavier objects fall faster—and these ideas often persist unless they are directly challenged. When instruction deliberately creates this conceptual conflict, students recognize that their existing understanding is incomplete or incorrect, motivating them to revise their thinking. In this way, cognitive dissonance supports conceptual change by encouraging active learning rather than rote memorization.
Discrepant events are a powerful instructional strategy for creating cognitive dissonance in science lessons. A discrepant event occurs when students make a prediction based on their prior beliefs and then observe an unexpected result that contradicts those predictions, such as seeing two objects of different masses fall at the same rate. This surprising outcome captures attention and prompts students to question their assumptions. With effective teacher guidance, including discussion, evidence-based reasoning, and scientific explanation, students can resolve the dissonance by adopting scientifically accurate concepts, leading to deeper and more durable understanding.
Discrepant Events
Discrepant Events
A discrepant event is a surprising or unexpected occurrence that contradicts students' prior knowledge or assumptions.
It creates cognitive dissonance, prompting curiosity and a strong desire to understand what happened.
In science teaching, it serves as a powerful engagement tool, especially at the beginning of a lesson because students develop a need to know why the phenomenon behaved the way it did
These events encourage questioning, investigation, and exploration, setting the stage for deeper scientific inquiry.
Examples of Discrepant Events
Examples of Discrepant Events
IMG_6077.movIMG_6079.movbioiling slow motion.MOVfountain.MOVcollapsing can.MOVputting candle out.movEmulsification of fat.mp4Do we see the same?
Do we see the same?
What Color is this dress?
What Color is this dress?
Remember, the dress is actually blue and black, though most people saw it as white and gold, at least at first. My research showed that if you assumed the dress was in a shadow, you were much more likely to see it as white and gold. Why? Because shadows overrepresent blue light. Mentally subtracting short-wavelength light (which would appear blue-ish) from an image will make it look yellow-ish. Natural light has a similar effect—people who thought it was illuminated by natural light were also more likely to see it as white and gold. Why? Because the sky is blue, daylight also overrepresents short wavelengths, compared with relatively long-wavelength artificial (until recently, usually incandescent) light. Just as mentally subtracting blue light leaves the image looking more yellow, mentally subtracting yellow light from an image leaves an image looking more blue, which is what I found empirically.
Do we hear the same?
Do we hear the same?
What do you hear? Laurel or Yanny?
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