Although we cannot be sure, I would guess that most of these adults learned this fact, but never altered their mental models of planetary motion because their everyday observations don t support it. We see the sun moving across the sky as morning turns into night. The earth-centric view of the universe makes sense according to the naive model that is easily constructed and tested and confirmed on a daily basis. In order to change an individual s mental model, we need to design instruction so that the errors in naive models are exposed and the benefits of the new model are obvious. Cognitive psychologists and others have diagnostic assessment models that provide information about each learner s understanding, and based on the way learners respond to questions designed to probe their understanding, teachers can redirect learning activities that correct these errors.
Academic motivation is related to beliefs about learning.
Many students believe that they cannot do math, or understand science, or write poetry, or succeed in some other academic discipline. When you ask them about this belief, you find that what they really are saying is that they believe that learning should be easy, but when they learn in these disciplines, it is effortful. What they don t know is that learning and remembering involve multiple, interdependent processes. Some types of learning occur implicitly, that is without conscious awareness. Other types of learning are very easy, and other types of learning are effortful, perhaps even painful and aversive, such as learning the names of the facial nerves or how to do long division.