Undergraduate Students’ Initial Ability in Understanding Phylogenetic Tree

Abstract

Abstract. The Phylogenetic tree is a visual representation depicts a hypothesis about the evolutionary relationship among taxa. Evolutionary experts use this representation to evaluate the evidence for evolution. The phylogenetic tree is currently growing for many disciplines in biology. Consequently, learning about the phylogenetic tree has become an important part of biological education and an interesting area of biology education research. Skill to understanding and reasoning of the phylogenetic tree, (called tree thinking) is an important skill for biology students. However, research showed many students have difficulty in interpreting, constructing, and comparing among the phylogenetic tree, as well as experiencing a misconception in the understanding of the phylogenetic tree. Students are often not taught how to reason about evolutionary relationship depicted in the diagram. Students are also not provided with information about the underlying theory and process of phylogenetic. This study aims to investigate the initial ability of undergraduate students in understanding and reasoning of the phylogenetic tree. The research method is the descriptive method. Students are given multiple choice questions and an essay that representative by tree thinking elements. Each correct answer made percentages. Each student is also given questionnaires. The results showed that the undergraduate students' initial ability in understanding and reasoning phylogenetic tree is low. Many students are not able to answer questions about the phylogenetic tree. Only 19 % undergraduate student who answered correctly on indicator evaluate the evolutionary relationship among taxa, 25% undergraduate student who answered correctly on indicator applying concepts of the clade, 17% undergraduate student who answered correctly on indicator determines the character evolution, and only a few undergraduate student who can construct the phylogenetic tree.

Development of ICT-Based Teaching Materials on Phylogeny Topic as Innovations in Evolution Courses: A need analysis

“…The needs analysis results can be used as the primary reference for developing the product and its specifications Evolution is a branch of biological science that investigates the process of biological change in which each species accumulates character differences obtained from their ancestors as they adapt to different environments over time (Urry et al, 2020). As for phylogeny, it is the study of the evolution history of a species or group of species visualized through phylogenetic trees (Solomon et al, 2019). Sa'adah et al (2017) & Fuadiyah et al (2021 revealed that the majority of students have difficulty understanding phylogeny, which is based on the low ability of students to interpret phylogenetic trees so that the right solution is needed to overcome this problem.…”

Phylogenetic trees and other evolutionary diagrams in biology textbooks and their importance in secondary science education

“…These fallacies in understanding the concepts of phylogeny and evolution seem to be rather hard to overcome. Even university students of biology often showed these misconceptions while dealing with the phylogenetic trees (Dees et al, 2014;Halverson et al, 2011;Kummer et al, 2016) -they were unable to correctly interpret the relations between taxa (Phillips et al, 2012;Sa'adah et al, 2017;Sandvik, 2008) and showed a wrong understanding of evolution (Sa'adah et al, 2017). Both biology graduates and undergraduates tended to read the phylogenetic trees from left to right assuming that organisms on the left always show more ancestral traits (Novick et al, 2012;Omland et al, 2008).…”