Students’ Mental Models of Evolutionary Causation: Natural Selection and Genetic Drift

Abstract

In an effort to understand how to improve student learning about evolution, a focus of science education research has been to document and address students' naive ideas. Less research has investigated how students reason about alternative scientific models that attempt to explain the same phenomenon (e.g., which causal model best accounts for evolutionary change?). Within evolutionary biology, research has yet to explore how non-adaptive factors are situated within students' conceptual ecologies of evolutionary causation. Do students construct evolutionary explanations that include nonadaptive and adaptive factors? If so, how are non-adaptive factors structured within students' evolutionary explanations? We used clinical interviews and two paper and pencil instruments (one open-response and one multiple-choice) to investigate the use of non-adaptive and adaptive factors in undergraduate students' patterns of evolutionary reasoning. After instruction that included non-adaptive causal factors (e.g., genetic drift), we found them to be remarkably uncommon in students' explanatory models of evolutionary change in both written assessments and clinical interviews. However, consistent with many evolutionary biologists' explanations, when students used non-adaptive factors they were conceptualized as causal alternatives to selection. Interestingly, use of non-adaptive factors was not associated with greater understanding of natural selection in interviews or written assessments, or with fewer naive ideas of natural selection. Thus, reasoning using non-adaptive factors appears to be a distinct facet of evolutionary thinking. We propose a theoretical framework for an expert-novice continuum of evolutionary reasoning that incorporates both adaptive and non-adaptive factors, and can be used to inform instructional efficacy in evolutionary biology.

Secondary school students’ reasoning about evolution

“…Findings in this study echo that of past research in that secondary school students’ understandings about evolution are largely underdeveloped and guided by their intuitive reasoning (Bishop & Anderson, ; Clough & Wood‐Robinson, ; Evans et al, ). Our findings are in line with research by Beggrow and Nehm () that increased exposure to more advanced content is insufficient in helping students build more expert‐like understandings about evolution. Perhaps the most important contribution of this research is the development of a more stringent coding scheme.…”

Knowledge of evolution and human diversity: a study among high school students of Rome, Italy

“…This incongruity can be attributed to the fact that the students may have considered intellectual abilities common to all populations, interpreting the success of a civilization as determined by the attainment of specific socio-cultural conditions in a certain historical period. Recent research in cognitive development suggests the tendency to emphasize the differences among human groups, rather than within group diversity (Opfer et al 2012;Beggrow and Nehm 2012). There is concern that such cognitive biases (e.g., appeal of teleology and emotiinal reactions to human diversity) may prevent students' full understanding of the epistemological foundations of human diversity (Girotto et al 2008;Shtulman and Calabi 2013).…”

Profil model mental siswa sekolah menengah atas tentang konsep sel

“…Penelitian model mental dapat diterapkan dalam pembelajaran biologi karena model mental dapat menginformasikan bagaimana seseorang memahami suatu konsep, seperti konsep evolusi (Begrrow & Nehm, 2012), mikroorganisme (Hamdiyati et al, 2018), genetika (Jalmo & Suwandi, 2018), dan biologi sel (Saptono et al, 2017). Ketiga penelitian tersebut mengungkap mental model pada mahasiswa.…”