Ss. Demastes et al., STUDENTS CONCEPTIONS OF NATURAL-SELECTION AND ITS ROLE IN EVOLUTION -CASES OF REPLICATION AND COMPARISON, Journal of research in science teaching, 32(5), 1995, pp. 535-550
The work of Bishop and Anderson (1990) plays a major role in educators
' understanding of evolution education. Their findings remind us that
the majority of university students do not understand the process of e
volution but that conceptual change instruction can be moderately effe
ctive in promoting the construction of a scientific understanding. The
present article details two studies that represent an effort to focus
on and define the limits of the Bishop and Anderson (1990) study. Stu
dy A describes a close replication of the work of Bishop and Anderson
(1990) using the same conceptual-change teaching module to teach a uni
t on evolution to students enrolled in a biology course for nonmajors.
Study B, a case of comparison, used the same evaluation instrument us
ed in Bishop and Anderson (1990) and Study A, but high school students
were the participants and the instruction was based on the inquiry ap
proach to science. Like Bishop and Anderson (1990), Study A showed tha
t the amount of prior instruction and students' beliefs in evolution w
ere not found to be large factors in students' use of scientific conce
ptions. Unlike the original study, the students in Study A showed only
a meager increase in their use of scientific conceptions for evolutio
n. In Study B, students in the experimental group showed significant i
ncreases in their use of scientific conceptions. These findings sugges
t a need to investigate more closely the teachers' theories of learnin
g, their reliance on instructional conversations, and the amount of ti
me devoted to the topic of evolution as we study conceptual change in
this area.