The how's and why's of biological change: How learners neglect physical mechanisms in their search for meaning

Abstract

This study describes the trends in students' explanations of biological change in organisms. A total of 96 student volunteers (8 students from each of 2 nd , 5 th , 8 th , and 12 th grades from 3 localities) were interviewed individually and each student was presented a series of graphics depicting natural phenomena. Students' explanations to questions of how something occurred were assigned to one of three categories (responses addressing how something occurred, why something occurred, and 'I don't know'). While the number of responses in each category was roughly equivalent in prominence across grade levels, the majority of students were unable to offer a causal explanation of how a phenomena occurred. An unexpected phenomenon was the students' predilection to redirect the interview question so they could answer them. If asked a how question, as they were in every interview instance, 32% the students answered with a 'why' response. The way biology is taught, the structure of biology or/and how we learn it could shed some light into this phenomenon and has implications for science educators.

Modelling Molecular Mechanisms: A Framework of Scientific Reasoning to Construct Molecular-Level Explanations for Cellular Behaviour

“…A bike, for instance, can be described mechanistically by describing the parts and their role in the whole (see Grotzer 2003 for a review on young children's appreciation of mechanisms). However, the study of Abrams and Southerland (2001) suggests that mechanistic reasoning in biology education, and especially in molecular biology education, is not as abundantly present as Russ et al (2008) report. These findings do not necessarily contradict.…”

“…Apparently, the need to explore the causal explanations that answer 'how a cell works' is not self-evident in the biology classroom. Abrams and Southerland (2001) suggest that one of the reasons for this is the tendency of biology teachers to focus on the benefits of a phenomenon rather than on the cause, and Kampourakis et al (2011) emphasizes that teachers should be aware of the difference between proximate and ultimate causes to distinguish effectively between 'how?' and 'why?'…”

“…However, Abrams and Southerland (2001) describe how students in the biology classroom tend to neglect physical mechanisms when asked to explain biological phenomena. They tend to focus on the function of a phenomenon, rather than wondering which physical mechanisms explain the phenomenon, and they often rely on teleological and anthropomorphic explanations (Kampourakis and Zogza 2008;Tamir and Zohar 1991;Zohar and Ginossar 1998).…”

Characterizing High School Students’ Written Explanations in Biology Laboratories

“…Tentativeness refers to students' doubts about the plausibility of their explanations and shifting explanations mean that students give different explanations for the same phenomenon when they are questioned about it different times. In an accompanying study, Abrams et al (2001) investigated students' explanations of biological change in organisms. They found that students are unfamiliar with and unprepared for causal explanations in biology.…”

Teaching biological evolution - internal and external evaluation of learning outcomes

“…Students often don't distinguish proximate from evolutionary explanations, or don't recognise what kind of time perspective their answer is supposed to deal with. Abrams, Southerland and Cummins (2001) developed the idea that there are both proximate and ultimate answers to "how and why" questions. Ariew (2003) suggests that answers to questions about "how" should refer to proximate causes; while towards "why-questions" evolutionary explanations are more fruitful.…”