Understanding Students Ideas about Animal Classification

Abstract

Classification is the arrangement of objects such as e.g. organisms, ideas, or information into groups. Its purpose is to make things easier to identify, describe, organize, find and study. Although classification itself is meant to help people to unify or clarify objects they are interested in, publications show that students might find it difficult to classify plants, animals and other organisms. The goal of the study has been to investigate Polish students' conceptions and attitudes towards animal classification and reveal the gaps between these and current scientific knowledge. The study has been conducted by surveys and in-depth interviews of 34 pupils, from primary schools. The research shows that students have similar conceptions about animal classification and also that children see the purpose behind animal classification but find it hard to apply in practice. Moreover, students were using different factors to distinguish animal classes from the ones used by scientific community. For example, they differentiated animals on the basis of: food they consume, respiratory system and utility for humans. Authors suggest that more stress should be put on these aspects during designing lessons about animal classification.

Vertebrate species knowledge: an important skill is threatened by extinction

“…Atran (1998) found that students did not use a taxonomic hierarchy to sort animals. Neither did Polish students, who mentioned several further aspects of how to classify animals besides their morphology (Chyleńska & Rybska, 2018). Therefore, it is very likely, that pupils in our study, who answered 'frog' thought that all frogs are the same.…”

What Can We Do for Amphibians and Reptiles at Schools? Between Personal Conceptions, Conceptual Change and Students’ Pro-Environmental Attitudes

“…For example, mollusks were classified as amphibians because of their movement (near the ground and slow) and skin attributes (smooth and slimy). As presented in the work of Chyleńska and Rybska [30], visible similarities were key to classification, and that is why slugs and snails might be classified as amphibians. Similar results can be observed in the work of Yen et al [19], where crickets were classified as reptiles because they live in warm fields, appear mostly on sunny days, and move very quickly.…”

“…Accordingly, if we would like to create the concept of an amphibian, we should first present their most typical representative, such as a frog—which might be presented as prototypical species of the amphibian group—and then present them with more extraordinary and atypical colorful species like salamander. Students frequently categorize organisms on the basis of anatomy, habitat or even name [30]. There are a number of animals whose names suggest that they belong to a different group or species than the one they actually belong to—for example, the horny toad which belongs to Phrynosoma is a reptile, or slow worm Anguis fragilis , which is also not a worm but a reptile.…”

“…There are a number of animals whose names suggest that they belong to a different group or species than the one they actually belong to—for example, the horny toad which belongs to Phrynosoma is a reptile, or slow worm Anguis fragilis , which is also not a worm but a reptile. These kinds of name are part of the culture of different nationalities; part of their folk biology, but they are often the source of alternative conceptions in animal classification by students [30].…”

Analisis kemampuan klasifikasi mahasiswa pendidikan biologi pada pembelajaran biosistematik hewan

“…Klasifikasi merupakan pengaturan terhadap objek organisme, ide, atau informasi ke dalam kelompok tertentu. Tujuannya adalah untuk membuat segala sesuatu lebih mudah untuk diidentifikasi, dijelaskan, diatur, ditemukan dan dipelajari (Chyleńska & Rybska, 2018). Akan sangat sulit mempelajari makhluk hidup yang sangat beranekaragam tersebut jika tidak ada pengelompokan.…”