The impact of direct challenges to student endorsement of teleological reasoning on understanding and acceptance of natural selection: an exploratory study

Abstract

Background Teleological reasoning is a cognitive bias purported to disrupt student ability to understand natural selection. Few studies have described pedagogical efforts to decrease student endorsement of teleological reasoning and measure the effects of this attenuation on the understanding and acceptance of evolution. This exploratory study examined the influence of explicit instructional activities directly challenging student endorsement of teleological explanations for evolutionary adaptations on their learning of natural selection over a semester-long undergraduate course in evolutionary medicine. In a convergent mixed methods design this study combined pre- and post-semester survey data (N = 83) on understanding natural selection, student endorsement of teleological reasoning, and acceptance of evolution, with thematic analysis of student reflective writing on their understanding and acceptance of natural selection and teleological reasoning. Results Student endorsement of teleological reasoning decreased and understanding and acceptance of natural selection increased during a course on human evolution with teleological intervention (p ≤ 0.0001), compared to a control course. Endorsement of teleological reasoning was predictive of understanding of natural selection prior to the semester. Thematic analysis revealed that prior to the course students were largely unaware of the concept of teleological reasoning and their own tendency to think about evolution in a purpose-directed way, but perceived attenuation of their own teleological reasoning by the end of the semester. Conclusions This exploratory study provides initial evidence that class activities to directly challenge student endorsement of unwarranted design teleological reasoning reduces the level and effects of teleological reasoning in an evolution course. Students were unaware of their high levels of endorsement of teleological reasoning upon entrance into the undergraduate human evolution course, which is consequential because teleological reasoning is a predicter of natural selection understanding. As a result of developed anti-teleological pedagogy, students had decreased unwarranted teleological reasoning and increased acceptance and understanding of natural selection over the course of the semester. The data presented show that students are receptive to explicit instructional challenges to their teleological reasoning and that attenuation of this bias is associated with gains in natural selection understanding and acceptance.

Influence of self‐assessment and conditional metaconceptual knowledge on students' self‐regulation of intuitive and scientific conceptions of evolution

“…However, the aforementioned studies did not investigate the individual effects of different instructional approaches to deal with student conceptions, leaving the question of how best to address intuitive conceptions. Other studies have indicated positive effects of instructional approaches that address students' conceptions such as refutation texts (Pickett et al, 2022), clarifications of misconceptions (Aptyka et al, 2022), discussions about common misconceptions using active learning approaches (Colton et al, 2018), group discussions about styles of scientific explanations (Halls et al, 2021), or direct challenges to intuitive thinking (Wingert et al, 2022). However, no rigorous experimental intervention study exists yet that investigates the effectiveness of specific metaconceptual approaches that are based on self-regulated learning and metacognition and directly address students' intuitive conceptions.…”

Modelos Científicos Escolares en estudiantado de secundaria ¿Cómo explican la evolución adaptativa?

“…4. Explicación teleológica de la adaptación de los seres vivos, como un proceso dirigido hacia una finalidad (Charrier et al, 2012;González Galli, 2011;González-Galli et al, 2020;Sánchez et al, 2017, Wingert et al, 2022.…”

“…Así, Hernández et al (2009), sentencian que, un número considerable de estudiantes mantiene concepciones alternativas que no son válidas desde un punto de vista científico, sean de secundaria o universitarios (González Galli, 2011), incluso después de los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Pérez et al (2018) y Wingert et al (2022), destacan que las principales dificultades son: las creencias religiosas, los obstáculos para el aprendizaje del modelo de evolución por selección natural, entendimiento de escalas temporales, concepciones alternativas incompatibles con los modelos científicos y las ideas del sentido común.…”

Validity aspects in measuring evolution acceptance: Evidence from surveys of preservice biology teachers and creationists

“…In recent years, the usage of the I‐SEA has increased (e.g., Barnes et al, 2019, 2020a, 2020b, 2021a, 2021b, 2022b; Ferguson & Jensen, 2021; Fiedler et al, 2019; Hartelt et al, 2022; Rachmatullah et al, 2018; Romine et al, 2018; Sbeglia & Nehm, 2019, 2020; Wingert et al, 2022), and several new insights into the structure of the scales were presented. For example, Sbeglia and Nehm (2019) found that the scales for microevolution and macroevolution are very stable within a university student sample, while the human evolution scale may be split into two sub‐dimensions (i.e., human microevolution and human macroevolution).…”