Depicting the tree of life in museums: guiding principles from psychological research

Novick, Laura R.; Pickering, J. E. Latton; MacDonald, Teresa; Diamond, Judy; Ainsworth, Shaaron; Aquino, Adriana E.; Catley, Kefyn M.; Dodick, Jeff; Evans, E. Margaret; Matuk, Camillia; Sacco, Janis; Scott, Monique

doi:10.1186/s12052-014-0025-0

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 48 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Tree thinking is also a key component of science literacy for society at large, as our previous discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic makes abundantly clear. Prior research has provided insights on strategies to improve tree-thinking skills in both formal and informal educational settings (e.g., Gregory, 2008; Matuk & Uttal, 2020; Novick & Catley, 2013, 2016; Novick et al, 2014; Smith & Cheruvelil, 2009). The focus of the current research concerns the joint impact of students’ prior knowledge and their perception of tree structure on their ability to make scientifically warranted inferences from cladograms.…”

Section: Understanding Evolutionary Treesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual grouping affects students’ propensity to make inferences consistent with their misconceptions.

Liu¹,

Novick²

2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People have many incorrect beliefs about evolutionary relationships among living things, in part due to the prominence people place on observable similarities as indicators of such. Consider: People think that porpoises and whales are more closely related to manatees than to bison based on their shared aquatic habitat. Our research asked whether it is possible to combat misconceptions using compelling visual representations. Previous research found that the Gestalt principles of perceptual grouping affect reasoning with evolutionary trees. We explored the potential of designing such trees as a “myth buster” tool to target biological misconceptions. More specifically, we tested the hypothesis that students would be less likely to make misconception-based inferences when the perceptual grouping of the tree branches strongly, as opposed to weakly, contradicts the misconception. The results of Experiment 1 showed that it is possible to manipulate perceptual grouping such that the tree structures are viewed as more versus less contradictory to a targeted misconception. Experiments 2 and 3 found that grouping manipulations reduced students’ propensity to make inferences consistent with their misconceptions for six misconceptions.

show abstract

Section: Understanding Evolutionary Treesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual grouping affects students’ propensity to make inferences consistent with their misconceptions.

Liu¹,

Novick²

2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, the final puzzle in the game is informed by an instructional booklet for teaching about evolutionary trees (Novick et al, 2012), as well as activities designed for use in class (Eddy et al, 2013;Goldsmith, 2003). Furthermore, all tree diagrams within the game were based on design principles informed by learning research that were developed to avoid reinforcing common misconceptions and facilitate ac-curate interpretation in ISIs (e.g., Novick et al, 2014), such as using square brackets as opposed to diagonal lines to represent lineages of descent and including an arrow of time on the tree.…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural History Mystery: Immersing Families in a Problem-Solving Game Using Natural History Exhibits

MacDonald,

Thanukos

2023

JSTEM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is a need for a better public understanding of evolutionary relatedness including its relevance to socio-scientific issues such as conservation and health. As venues that play an important role in communicating about evolution, natural history museums have an opportunity to explore novel means of enhancing visitor learning in this area. We describe the design, testing, modification, and evaluation of an immersive, problem-solving educational game on the topic of evolution using specimens on display in a natural history museum. Natural History Mystery invites small teams of players to solve a series of puzzles to identify the source of a zoonotic disease. In the process, they use existing exhibits and supporting game components to learn about shared characters, common ancestry, and relatedness. The game was iteratively designed through multiple rounds of trial testing with families and other groups. A summative assessment performed by an external evaluator concluded that, through the game, players had fun, explored the museum in new ways, and felt they learned and developed new skills. The evaluation found that participants learned about evolutionary relationships and made connections between evolution and medical applications. We share details about game/puzzle design and development along with lessons learned, providing a model for other institutions to create their own themed puzzle-hunt game customized to their site.

show abstract

“…There are hardly any sub-disciplines of biology in which phylogenetic analyses do not play an important role in modern science, not only for science communication but also research and education [1,4,5]. It is argued that evolutionary trees are an indispensable tool in teaching about evolution, be it in formal [30,31] or informal education [32,33], and they have been integrated into many national curricula [15].…”

Section: Importance Of Evolutionary Treesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing the Woods for the Trees Again: Analyzing Evolutionary Diagrams in German and US University-Level Textbooks

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Phylogenetic trees are important tools for teaching and understanding evolution, yet students struggle to read and interpret them correctly. In this study, we extend a study conducted by Catley and Novick (2008) by investigating depictions of evolutionary trees in US textbooks. We investigated 1197 diagrams from 11 German and 11 United States university textbooks, conducting a cross-country comparison and comparing the results with data from the 2008 study. A coding manual was developed based on the 2008 study, with extensions focused on additional important aspects of evolutionary trees. The US and German books showed only a low number of significant differences, typically with very small impacts. In both samples, some characteristics that can render reading trees more difficult or foster misconceptions were found to be prevalent in various portions of the diagrams. Furthermore, US textbooks showed fewer problematic properties in our sample than in the 2008 sample. We conclude that evolutionary trees in US and German textbooks are represented comparably and that depictions in US textbooks have improved over the past 12 years. As students are confronted with comparable depictions of evolutionary relatedness, we argue that findings and materials from one country should easily be transferable to the other.

show abstract

Depicting the tree of life in museums: guiding principles from psychological research

Cited by 6 publications

References 48 publications

Perceptual grouping affects students’ propensity to make inferences consistent with their misconceptions.

Perceptual grouping affects students’ propensity to make inferences consistent with their misconceptions.

Natural History Mystery: Immersing Families in a Problem-Solving Game Using Natural History Exhibits

Seeing the Woods for the Trees Again: Analyzing Evolutionary Diagrams in German and US University-Level Textbooks

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About