Implicit associations of teleology and essentialism concepts with genetics concepts among secondary school students

Stern, Florian; Delaval, Marine; Kampourakis, Kostas; Müller, Andréas

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0242189

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Note that we chose the concept of “chance” (in the sense of “unpredictable process”) as it has been shown to be poorly understood, for instance, when learning about random mutations (Mills Shaw et al, 2007) or evolution (e.g., see Fiedler et al, 2017). More information about the rationale to choose the three contrasting concepts can be found in Stern, Delaval, et al (2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The GET‐IAT was developed to measure students' implicit associations of genetics and teleology concepts, and of genetics and essentialism concepts (GET‐IAT, for more information see Data S1, or Stern, Delaval, et al, 2020). It was administered to 169 secondary‐school students and has shown that students exhibit significant implicit associations of genetics and teleology concepts, in addition to significant implicit associations of genetics and essentialism concepts.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It was administered to 169 secondary‐school students and has shown that students exhibit significant implicit associations of genetics and teleology concepts, in addition to significant implicit associations of genetics and essentialism concepts. Meanwhile, no significant relation was found between prior knowledge of biology and these associations (Stern, Delaval, et al, 2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The validity and reliability of the inferences made based on the results provided by both the GET questionnaire and the GET‐IAT were established (Stern, Delaval, et al, 2020; Stern, Kampourakis, et al, 2020). To the best of our knowledge, no test was previously designed to measure students' teleology and essentialism conceptions in the context of genetics, even though one questionnaire was designed to investigate teleology and essentialism in biology at the undergraduate level (Coley & Tanner, 2015).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Genes for a role,” “genes as essences”: Secondary students' explicit and implicit intuitions about genetic essentialism and teleology

2022

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Biology education research has shown that deeply rooted intuitions can influence students' understanding of biological phenomena. One example is design teleology, the intuition that organisms' traits were designed to fulfill a goal. Another example is psychological essentialism, the intuition that organisms have fixed essences. Past research has found both of these intuitions to be conceptual obstacles for understanding evolution. In our study, we investigated whether conceptions stemming from these two intuitions are also expressed in the context of genetics. So, we used two tests to identify teleology and essentialism conceptions in the context of genetics: a multiple‐choice questionnaire (Genetic Essentialism and Teleology Questionnaire) and an implicit test (Genetic Essentialism and Teleology Implicit Association Test [IAT]). The development and validation process of these two tests are presented elsewhere. The present article presents the results of the administration of both tests to 332 secondary school students. It was found that: (1) those students exhibited teleology and essentialism conceptions in the context of genetics; the former, but not the latter, were less frequent the older students were; (2) teleology and essentialism conceptions were not correlated; and (3) measures from the explicit and implicit tests were not correlated with each other. Recommendations to improve teaching about genetics are made; for instance, we suggest that students' genetic essentialism conceptions could be addressed by emphasizing the existence of variation within populations and species, and the impact of mutations on phenotypic outcomes. We also recommend that teachers address design teleology and psychological essentialism conceptions independently from each other.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

“Genes for a role,” “genes as essences”: Secondary students' explicit and implicit intuitions about genetic essentialism and teleology

2022

Self Cite

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“…The importance of learning about genetics is highlighted by its inclusion in the standards for science education in the United States [4] and many other countries [5,6]. However, students often have difficulties understanding genetic inheritance [7][8][9]. Understanding genetics for a specific organism presented in a lesson is important, and it is also critical that students learn to transfer from the examples provided in lessons, though such transfer is often limited [10,11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance

Menendez,

Donovan,

Mathiaparanam

et al. 2024

Education Sciences

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Prior work has shown that many undergraduate students have misconceptions about genetic inheritance, even after they take genetics courses. Visual representations, such as pedigree diagrams, are commonly used in genetics instruction, and they help students quickly visualize the phenotypes of multiple generations. In Study 1, we examined whether presenting a pedigree diagram of a wolf’s eye color in a rich and realistic manner (i.e., with rich perceptual images that resemble real animals) or in an abstract manner (i.e., with circles and squares representing animals) would help undergraduates learn from a brief, online lesson on inheritance of the wolf’s eye color, and whether they would transfer what they learned when reasoning about eye color in other species (near transfer) and other traits in other species (mid- and far transfer). Counter to our hypothesis, students transferred more with the rich diagram. In Study 2, we compared the rich diagram from Study 1 to a perceptually bland diagram (i.e., with color and textural features removed). There were no differences in students’ learning or transfer between the diagrams. These results suggest that realistic elements that are attention grabbing and easily interpretable by students can be beneficial for transfer in online lessons.

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Who do I Look like More, Mom or Dad? An Exploratory Survey about Primary Students’ Ideas about Heredity

Zudaire,

Ayuso,

Napal

et al. 2024

Res Sci Educ

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Unlike in other countries, heredity and genetics appear first in Spanish science standards in secondary levels. However, some researchers have suggested the need of progressively introducing some basic genetic ideas already from primary education levels. In this context of no formal instruction in early stages, the objectives of our work were to characterize the incipient heredity model of primary school pupils and to evaluate its progression, to identify the most appropriate time to introduce these ideas. We designed a 12-item questionnaire referred to two constructs: (1) the difference between biologically inherited and environmental acquired traits and (2) the mechanism of inheritance. 535 primary school pupils (6–12 years; grades 1–6) took part in the study. In addition, 1–2 pupils per class were interviewed, totalling 30 interviewees. The results showed that pupils clearly identified physical resemblance as inheritable but had more difficulties in assessing physiological traits. Most pupils (84%) correctly identified that accidentally acquired traits were not transmitted to the descendance. However, only 32,2% of them use terms related to inheritance (77,1% of them in G4 – G6). Regarding the mechanism of inheritance, the idea that siblings express traits of both parents becomes more prevalent from grade 3, even suggesting the appearance of new traits or the mixture of previous ones. Older pupils accepted that a trait could skip a generation, although most of them were unable to explain the mechanism, that involves the idea of dominance/ recessiveness. These results allow identifying key leverage points for constructing the inheritance model at Primary levels.

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Implicit associations of teleology and essentialism concepts with genetics concepts among secondary school students

Cited by 5 publications

References 95 publications

“Genes for a role,” “genes as essences”: Secondary students' explicit and implicit intuitions about genetic essentialism and teleology

“Genes for a role,” “genes as essences”: Secondary students' explicit and implicit intuitions about genetic essentialism and teleology

The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance

Who do I Look like More, Mom or Dad? An Exploratory Survey about Primary Students’ Ideas about Heredity

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