STUDENTS CONCEPTIONS OF NATURAL-SELECTION AND ITS ROLE IN EVOLUTION -CASES OF REPLICATION AND COMPARISON

Citation
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
Citations number
28
Categorie Soggetti
Education & Educational Research
ISSN journal
00224308
Volume
32
Issue
5
Year of publication
1995
Pages
535 - 550
Database
ISI
SICI code
0022-4308(1995)32:5<535:SCONAI>2.0.ZU;2-M
Abstract
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.