Although often conceptualized in contradictory terms, the common assumption that natural and supernatural explanations are incompatible is psychologically inaccurate. Instead, there is considerable evidence that the same individuals use both natural and supernatural explanations to interpret the very same events and that there are multiple ways in which both kinds of explanations coexist in individual minds. Converging developmental research from diverse cultural contexts in 3 areas of biological thought (i.e., the origin of species, illness, and death) is reviewed to support this claim. Contrary to traditional accounts of cognitive development, new evidence indicates that supernatural explanations often increase rather than decrease with age and supports the proposal that reasoning about supernatural phenomena is an integral and enduring aspect of human cognition.
Learning about biological evolution presents particular challenges for students. Barriers to learning come in the form of students' prior conceptions that conflict with the scientific perspective of biological change. Theory and research from developmental and educational psychology provide insight into these barriers. Helping students understand evolution is not simply a matter of adding to their existing knowledge, but rather, it means helping them to see the world in new and different ways. Theoretical perspectives on creating change in students' conceptions have implications for teaching about biological evolution.
Museum visitors are an ideal population for assessing the persistence of the conceptual barriers that make it difficult to grasp Darwinian evolutionary theory. In comparison with other members of the public, they are more likely to be interested in natural history, have higher education levels, and be exposed to the relevant content. If museum visitors do not grasp evolutionary principles, it seems unlikely that other members of the general public would do so. In the current study, 32 systematically selected visitors to three Midwest museums of natural history provided detailed openended explanations of biological change in seven diverse organisms. They were not told that these were evolutionary problems. Responses were coded as: informed naturalistic reasoning, featuring some understanding of key evolutionary concepts, novice naturalistic reasoning, featuring intuitive explanations that are also present in childhood, and creationist reasoning, featuring supernatural explanations. All visitors were mixed reasoners, using one or more of these patterns in different permutations across the seven organisms: 72% used a combination of informed naturalistic reasoning and novice naturalistic reasoning, while a further 28% added creationist reasoning to this mix. Correlational analyses indicated that for many visitors these reasoning patterns were coherent rather than fragmented. The theoretical model presented in this article contributes to an analysis of the developmental and cultural factors associated with these patterns. This could help educators working in diverse educational settings understand how to move visitors and students toward more informed reasoning patterns. ß
How and when do children develop an understanding of extraordinary mental capacities? Fifty-six preschoolers (3-5 years old) were tested on false-belief and knowledge-ignorance tasks about the mental states of carefully contrasted agents – some agents were ordinary humans, some had exceptional perceptual capacities, and others possessed extraordinary mental capacities. Results indicated that, in contrast with younger and older peers, children within a specific age-range reliably attributed fallible, human-like capacities to ordinary humans and to several special agents (including God) for both tasks. These data lend critical support to an anthropomorphism hypothesis – which holds that children’s understanding of extraordinary minds is derived from their everyday intuitive psychology – and reconcile disparities between the findings of other studies on children’s understanding of extraordinary minds.
ABSTRACT:To investigate how parents support children's learning at an exhibit on evolution, the conversations of 12 families were recorded, transcribed, and coded (6,263 utterances). Children (mean age 9.6 years) and parents visited Explore Evolution, which conveyed current research about the evolution of seven organisms. Families were engaged Portions of this research were presented at the
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