A community-informed list of key speciation concepts for undergraduate education

Abstract

Background: Many topics in evolutionary biology have been the focus of little research about student thinking and learning. This lack of research limits the evidence base on which instructors can draw to inform their teaching. A key starting place for education research about evolutionary topics is determining what concepts are important for undergraduates to learn. This work develops a community-informed list of key concepts about speciation. Speciation is commonly taught in undergraduate biology education, yet has been the focus of almost no research on teaching and learning. We gathered input from over 110 evolution educators and speciation researchers to create a comprehensive list of speciation concepts for undergraduate education. Results: The community-informed list includes 24 concept statements organized within 4 overarching concepts. At least 80% of experts rated these statements as scientifically accurate and clear. Over 90% of experts rated the statements as important or somewhat important for a graduating senior in biology to understand. Conclusions: This list provides a foundation for both education researchers and evolution educators. Education researchers who investigate student thinking and who develop research-based measurement tools can use this list to determine key concepts on which to focus their future work. Educators can use this list to guide the development of learning objectives for speciation instruction. Future work should investigate what concepts are reasonable for an undergraduate to master in a 4-year degree.

The species problem in evolution education

“…The lack of teaching important aspects of evolutionary theory is perceived not only in the curricula, but also in the educational research on the way pupils and students think, learn, and understand the evolutionary issues (Dial et al, 2019;Ziadie & Andrews, 2018). Research on the acceptance and understanding of evolution is based partly on pupils and students views on species and speciation (Anderson et al, 2002;Nadelson & Southerland, 2009;Shtulman, 2006;Shtulman & Schulz, 2008) and the assumption that species taxa represent categories (Shtulman, 2018;Shtulman & Schulz, 2008) or are natural kinds (Berti et al, 2010;Samarapungavan & Wries, 1997), without taking into account that adoption of such notions about species taxa does not fit with modern evolutionary theory as mentioned in previous section.…”