What kinds of scientific concepts exist? Concept construction and intellectual development in college biology

Abstract

Previous research has found that scientific concepts can be meaningfully classified as descriptive (i.e., concepts such as predator and organism with directly observable exemplars) or theoretical (i.e., concepts such as atom and gene without directly observable exemplars). Previous research has also found that developing understanding of descriptive and theoretical concepts is linked to students' developmental levels, presumably because the procedural knowledge structures (i.e., reasoning patterns) that define developmental levels are needed for concept construction. The present study extends prior theory and research by postulating the existence of an intermediate class of concepts called hypothetical (i.e., concepts such as subduction and evolution with exemplars that cannot in practice be observed due to limits on the normal observational time frame). The hypothesis that three kinds of scientific concepts exist was tested by constructing and administering a test on concepts introduced in a college biology course. As predicted, descriptive concept questions were significantly easier than hypothetical concept questions, than were theoretical concept questions. Further, because concept construction presumably depends in part on developmental level, students at differing developmental levels (levels 3, 4, and 5, where level 5 is conceptualized as ‘post‐formal’ in which hypotheses involving unseen entities can be tested) were predicted to vary in the extent to which they succeeded on the concepts test. As predicted, a significant relationship (p < 0.001) was found between conceptual knowledge and developmental level. This result replicates previous research, and therefore provides additional support for the hypothesis that procedural knowledge skills associated with levels of intellectual development play an important role in declarative knowledge acquisition and in concept construction. The result also supports the hypothesis that intellectual development continues beyond the ‘formal’ stage during the college years, at least for some students. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 996–1018, 2000

Estudio cognitivo sobre el contenido de conceptos (científicos, concretos y abstractos) y la influencia del conocimiento

“…Una vía de análisis se ha centrado en la especificidad de los conceptos manejados por la ciencia y en sus posibles clasificaciones (cfr. en filosofía de la ciencia, Achinstein, 1968;Hempel, 1952;Suppe, 1973Suppe, /1990Wartofsky, 1976;en ciencias, Chi, 1992en ciencias, Chi, , 2005Chi, Slotta y de Leeuw, 1994;Reiner, Slota, Chi y Resnik, 2000;Lawson, Alkhouty, Benford, Clark y Falconer, 2000;Reif, 1987;Rief y Allen;1992). También, a partir de las clasificaciones de conceptos construidas desde la psicología, ha podido vislumbrarse el carácter "especial" de los conceptos científicos (cfr.…”

Investigating the relationship between college students’ acceptance of evolution and tree thinking understanding

“…These factors include cognitive biases (Evans 2000(Evans , 2008Gelman 2003;Medin and Atran 2004;Wellman and Gelman 1998), intellectual development barriers (Lawson et al 2000), dispositional and motivational barriers (Brem et al 2003;Sinatra et al 2003), epistemological beliefs (Vosniadou and Brewer 1992), and religious beliefs (Almquist and Cronin 1988;Hokayem and BouJaoude 2008;Sinclair et al 1997). The purpose of this study was not to investigate these factors; rather, we acknowledge their likely influence on this population and note that these factors likely contributed more to the variance of students' acceptance of evolution than their tree thinking understanding.…”

“…Our final consideration for future research relates our work to research in intellectual development and evolution learning (for example, Lawson et al 2000;Lawson and Thompson 1988;Sinatra 2003, 2005;Southerland et al 2001). Acceptance of evolution as a valid explanation of the natural world requires multiplistic epistemology (Perry 1970) for individuals who are strongly religious (that is, these individuals must have the ability to recognize the validity of multiple viewpoints).…”

Incorporating Learning Objects in a Curriculum Redesign to Meet Needs of Students with Specific Learning Disabilities in Illinois Agricultural Education Programs

“…The researchers also found that students who had a higher scientific reasoning score changed their nonscientific beliefs the most, which led Lawson and Weser to conclude that skilled learners were better able to adapt their nonscientific beliefs to scientific beliefs. Lawson, Alkhoury, Benford, Clark, and Falconer (2000) studied college students using the LCTSR by changing the difficulty of the hypothesis presented during quizzes. Lawson et al found higher level reasoners were better able to transfer problems on an exam.…”