Exploring the Impact of a Task-specific Warning to Overcome Intuitive Interference: Humble Lesson on How to Teach in the Context of Representational Plurality

Irrelevant but salient (automatically processed) variables of a given science or mathematics task are known to cause intuitive interference with formal reasoning, leading to incorrect responses. To help students overcome intuitive interference, one approach focuses on a warning intervention which aims at activating executive control mechanisms, hence increasing the ability to overcome the tendency to respond in line with the irrelevant salient variable. In this paper, we examine the impact of a task specific warning in the comparison of perimeters task on success rate and response time in three samples: primary school pupils, university students from science and mathematics education programs and university students and recent alumni in fields other than science and mathematics education. Results suggest that a task-specific warning helps primary school pupils and university students in science and mathematics education programs overcome the intuitive interference. However, the warning did not impact the success rate of university students and recent alumni in fields other than science and mathematics education. Overall, given the potential incompatibility of the plurality of representations in science and mathematics tasks, our data suggests that an explicit warning can help learners to opt for the appropriate representation. However, a key factor in a successful warning intervention seems to be promoting a greater willingness to examine ones’ ideas or an openness to representational change.