The process of learning includes not only success in developing knowledge, skills, and abilities but also mistakes and errors that impede such success. In any domain of learning, instructors will have developed a sense of the typical errors learners make.
Wiggins and McTigue, in Understanding by Design (2005), term these “predictable misunderstandings” and encourage consideration of them in the instructional design process in order to anticipate and overcome learner misconceptions.
There has been limited systematic investigation and documentation of predictable misunderstandings in information literacy learning in higher education. This research project is intended to begin to fill that gap.