Children’s Ability to Learn Evolutionary Explanations for Biological Adaptation

Shtulman, Andrew; Neal, Cara; Lindquist, Gabrielle

doi:10.4324/9781315122601-9

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Conceptual coexistence was also found for heat and temperature knowledge at all seven time-points. This coexistence of contradictory knowledge has also been found in experimental work examining the ability of children and adults to learn selection-based explanations of biological adaptation (Shtulman, Neal, & Lindquist, 2016). Results showed that while older children and adults could equally learn these explanations, both groups included intuitive ideas alongside of scientifically accepted ideas.…”

Section: Once P Tua L Coe Xi S Tenc Esupporting

confidence: 57%

Categories in conflict: Combating the application of an intuitive conception of inheritance with category construction

et al. 2018

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The idea that characteristics acquired by an organism during its lifetime can be inherited by offspring and result in evolution is a substantial impediment to student understanding of evolution. In the current study, we performed a preliminary examination of how acquiring physical changes in a question prompt may differentially cue intuitive and scientific justifications of inheritance and evolution and how this varies based on how student learned the concept. Middle school students in a suburban northeastern district (N = 314) either learned about evolutionary change with a category construction task (with different levels of feedback support) or completed a worksheet. Three days later students responded to two free response scenarios (one where a physical change is acquired). Responses were coded based on student justifications for either science accuracy or intuitive nature. Specific reasons were coded by justification type with high inter‐rater agreement (k > 0.93). Results showed that students were more likely to apply intuitive reasoning when a physical change was acquired (50%) than if the change was behavioral in nature (16%). Additionally, students who completed the category construction task provided significantly more scientifically accurate justifications about inheritance (M = 1.12) than control students (M = 0.47), and significantly less intuitive justifications (M = 0.67) than control (M = 1.13). Finally, category construction produced the most scientific reasoning when feedback was provided. Taken together, these results suggest that intuitive reasoning is differentially applied based on physical organismal changes, intuitive reasoning is less frequent when learning via category construction, and the category construction task is more effective for this population with the inclusion of feedback.

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Section: Once P Tua L Coe Xi S Tenc Esupporting

confidence: 57%

Categories in conflict: Combating the application of an intuitive conception of inheritance with category construction

et al. 2018

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“…Few people, for instance, reason about the origin of species in purely evolutionary terms or purely creationist terms. Rather, most evoke both types of explanations (Shtulman, Neal, & Lindquist, 2016; Weisberg, Landrum, Metz, & Weisberg, 2018) and accept both types of claims (Evans et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competing Explanations of Competing Explanations: Accounting for Conflict Between Scientific and Folk Explanations

Shtulman

Legare

2019

Topics in Cognitive Science

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People who hold scientific explanations for natural phenomena also hold folk explanations, and the two types of explanations compete under some circumstances. Here, we explore the question of why folk explanations persist in the face of a well-understood scientific alternative, a phenomenon known as explanatory coexistence. We consider two accounts: an associative account, where coexistence is driven by low-level associations between co-occurring ideas in experience or discourse, and a theory-based account, where coexistence reflects high-level competition between distinct sets of causal expectations. We present data that assess the relative contributions of these two accounts to the cognitive conflict elicited by counterintuitive scientific ideas. Participants (134 college undergraduates) verified scientific statements like "air has weight" and "bacteria have DNA" as quickly as possible, and we examined the speed and accuracy of their verifications in relation to measures of associative information (lexical co-occurrence of the statements' subjects and predicates) and theorybased expectations (ratings of whether the statements' subjects possess theory-relevant attributes). Both measures explained a significant amount of variance in participants' responses, but the theorybased measures explained three to five times more. These data suggest that the cognitive conflict elicited by counterintuitive scientific ideas typically arises from competing theories and that such ideas might be made more intuitive by strengthening scientific theories or weakening folk theories.

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“…Therefore, it is highly improbable that the students who engaged in our activity had previously explored this process in school. Both the present work and the work previously published on these grades (Berti et al., 2017 ; Brown et al., 2020 ; Emmons et al., 2017 ; Frejd et al., 2020 ; Kelemen et al., 2014 ; Sá‐Pinto, Cardia, et al., 2017 ; Sá‐Pinto, Pinto, et al., 2017 ; Shtulman et al., 2016 ) only evaluated the impact of students’ engagement in one activity exploring natural selection. However, as suggested by both Nehm ( 2018 ) and Vergnaud ( 2009 ), a clear understanding of natural selection and its key concepts (or “invariables”; Vergnaud, 2009 ) can only be achieved through the exploration of this process in distinct situations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Although other activities have been reported to explore natural selection with elementary school students (see, among others, Berti et al., 2017 ; Frejd et al., 2020 ; Kelemen et al., 2014 ; Sá‐Pinto, Cardia, et al., 2017 ; Sá‐Pinto, Pinto, et al., 2017 ; Shtulman et al., 2016 ), to the best of our knowledge, no other activity has engaged students in mathematical modeling to achieve this type of goal. However, mathematical thinking and the ability to develop and use models have been recognized as important scientific practices that students should learn since their initial years of schooling (National Research Council, 2012 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, despite the NRC’s (2012) recommendation, little information is yet available regarding effective strategies to teach evolution at such young ages or what students in elementary schools can learn about evolution, their knowledge, and misconceptions about this topic, although we know that, for older students, these vary a lot between different countries (Kuschmierz et al., 2020 ). Moreover, few studies have analyzed elementary school students’ understanding of evolution and even fewer explored their understanding of natural selection (Nadelson et al, 2009 ; Campos & Sá‐Pinto, 2013 ; Kelemen et al., 2014 ; Shtulman et al., 2016 ; Berti et al., 2017 ; Emmons et al., 2017 ; Sá‐Pinto, Pinto, et al., 2017 ; Sá‐Pinto, Cardia & Campos, 2017 ; Brown et al., 2020 ; Frejd et al., 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Following Darwin’s footsteps: Evaluating the impact of an activity designed for elementary school students to link historically important evolution key concepts on their understanding of natural selection

Sá-Pinto

Pinto

Ribeiro

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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While several researchers have suggested that evolution should be explored from the initial years of schooling, little information is available on effective resources to enhance elementary school students’ level of understanding of evolution by natural selection (LUENS). For the present study, we designed, implemented, and evaluated an educational activity planned for fourth graders (9 to 10 years old) to explore concepts and conceptual fields that were historically important for the discovery of natural selection. Observation field notes and students’ productions were used to analyze how the students explored the proposed activity. Additionally, an evaluation framework consisting of a test, the evaluation criteria, and the scoring process was applied in two fourth‐grade classes (N = 44) to estimate elementary school students’ LUENS before and after engaging in the activity. Our results show that our activity allowed students to link the key concepts, resulting in a significant increase of their understanding of natural selection. They also reveal that additional activities and minor fine‐tuning of the present activity are required to further support students’ learning about the concept of differential reproduction.

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Children’s Ability to Learn Evolutionary Explanations for Biological Adaptation

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Categories in conflict: Combating the application of an intuitive conception of inheritance with category construction

Categories in conflict: Combating the application of an intuitive conception of inheritance with category construction

Competing Explanations of Competing Explanations: Accounting for Conflict Between Scientific and Folk Explanations

Following Darwin’s footsteps: Evaluating the impact of an activity designed for elementary school students to link historically important evolution key concepts on their understanding of natural selection

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