Young children’s impressionable use of teleology: the influence of question wording and questioned topic on teleological explanations for natural phenomena

Halls, Jonathan Grant; Ainsworth, Shaaron; Oliver, Mary

doi:10.1080/09500693.2018.1451008

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Consequently, interventions highlighting the inappropriateness of teleological explanations may be effective at limiting children's use (Trommler & Hammann, 2020). Halls et al (2018) argued that children's use of teleological explanations may result from fragmented knowledge about the natural world. Using structured interviews, children (5-to 8-years-old) were asked to explain the existence of different natural phenomena (time-constrained events or processes, such as weather) to explore the effect of different question wordings and the question focus (e.g., rain or snow).…”

Section: Understanding Teleologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, for snow, children were presented with statements suggesting there is snow for telling some animals to hibernate over winter (design-teleology), so children can make snowmen (relational-teleology) and because it is really cold and the raindrops freeze and turn into snowflakes (causal). These topics were based on Halls et al (2018) and were those with the highest proportion of teleological explanations. The full set is detailed in Appendix 1.…”

Section: Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is illustrated by considering different forms of teleology. Types of teleology include, but are not limited to: design-teleology, something is explained as having been created explicitly by an external or internal agent for a specific purpose (e.g., rain is for watering plants) (Kampourakis, 2020); functional-teleology, something is explained with reference to the function it provides for an organism (e.g., anteaters' claws are for digging) (Zohar and Ginossar, 1998); or relational-teleology, something is explained in relation to a purpose for which it appears to be used or an effect that it causes, typically in connection to humankind (e.g., night is a time that people use for sleeping or day is for going to school) (Halls, Ainsworth and Oliver, 2018). Such relational-teleological explanations reflect individuals' experiences of the world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Viewing teleology as a style of explanation that may or may not be due to an explicit teleological reasoning process has several implications, including the interplay between cultural patterns of language and children's use of teleological explanations, and the impact that this has on designing methods of instruction. Drawing on suggestions by Trommler and Hammann (2020) and Halls, Ainsworth and Oliver (2018), the work outlined here designs interventions that support children to recognise incorrect teleological explanations in order to 'chip away' at fragments of knowledge that may cause children to endorse such explanations in scientific contexts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Using dialogic interventions to decrease children’s use of inappropriate teleological explanations

Halls

Ainsworth

Oliver

2021

International Journal of Science Education

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A belief in teleology is often suggested to be a barrier in children's science education. Many studies have catalogued children's use of teleological explanations, but fewer have developed approaches to tackle children's use in scientific contexts. This paper reports two studies that utilised dialogic interventions alongside Concept Cartoons to do just that. Study 1 (5-to 7-yearolds, n = 54) addressed teleological explanations for natural phenomena (e.g., snow or rainbows) and Study 2, (9-to 10-year-olds, n = 24) explored organisms' traits (e.g., giraffes' necks or zebras' stripes). Both studies found that after only short discussions about styles of explanation in science, children's acceptance of teleological explanations was significantly reduced and they were more likely to endorse appropriate scientific explanations. These results suggest that teleology need not be a major barrier to teaching and learning about causality as it can quickly and effectively be addressed.

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Section: Understanding Teleologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Using dialogic interventions to decrease children’s use of inappropriate teleological explanations

Halls

Ainsworth

Oliver

2021

International Journal of Science Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Other studies, however, have documented more elaborated types of teleological reasoning, where the students assumed that God, Mother Nature, an internal body wisdom, or an organism's intention set the purpose (Kampourakis and Zogza 2008;Kelemen 2012;Baalmann et al 2004;Deadman and Kelly 1978;Halldén 1988;Kelemen and DiYanni 2005;Moore et al 2002;Weitzel 2006). Halls et al (2018), however, have provided evidence that not all students who reason teleologically believe that functional structures and mechanisms exist due to their functionality but rather discuss functional structures and mechanisms in terms of their benefit for an organism. Such a descriptive rather than causal use of teleological reasoning can be classified as epistemological teleology, which we will describe in the following paragraphs.…”

Section: Ontological Teleologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between biological function and teleology: Implications for biology education

Trommler

Hammann

2020

Evo Edu Outreach

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This paper explicates the relationship between biological function and teleology by focusing not only on difference but also on conceptual overlap. By doing so, this paper is meant to increase awareness of the misleading potential of biological function and the educational necessity to explicate the meaning of biological function to biology students to prevent them from drawing inadequate teleological conclusions about biological phenomena. The conceptual overlap between teleology and biological function lies in the notion of telos (end, goal). Biologically inadequate teleology assumes that teloi (ends, goals) exist in nature and that natural mechanisms are directed towards teloi. Such inadequate teleological assumptions have been documented in students’ reasoning about biological phenomena. Biological function, however, does not involve the assumption that teloi exist in nature. Rather, biologists use the notion of telos as an epistemological tool whenever they consider a structure or mechanism functional because they view this structure or mechanism as a means to an end (telos). Whereas for biologists such means-ends conceptualizations represent a productive tool for identifying biological phenomena functionally, for students, such means-ends considerations can be misleading. Therefore, this paper explicates how far the concept of biological function involves reference to ends (teloi) and how it relates to biological mechanisms. The paper draws implications on how to prevent students from slipping from functional reasoning into inadequate teleological reasoning.

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About birds and bees, snails and trees: Children's ideas on animal and plant evolution

Adler,

Fiedler,

Harms

2024

Science Education

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Evolution is the integrative framework of the life sciences. Even though the topic is often not formally introduced before high school, young children already have various ideas about evolutionary principles (variation, inheritance, and selection) and their underlying key concepts (e.g., differential fitness, reproduction, and speciation). Describing and refining those ideas has increasingly received attention over the last two decades. However, we see two scopes of improvement in the field: (1) There is a need to examine children's ideas about evolutionary concepts holistically rather than focusing at specific aspects. (2) Although research has shown that older students have different ideas about animal and plant evolution, there is little data on children's ideas about plant evolution to compare with their ideas about animal evolution. All of this results in an incomplete record of children's pre‐existing ideas that would help to design assessments or interventions. Consequently, we developed a set of questions, about the evolutionary principles and interviewed 24 kindergarten children. Most children had basic ideas about individual variation in animals and plants but experienced a lack of knowledge about the origin of variation. Most children seemed to acknowledge plants as living beings and reasoned equally about animals and plants for most concepts. However, many children failed to reason about reproduction and inheritance in plants because they believed plants would not reproduce sexually. Confronted with a selection scenario, most children struggled applying concepts previously shown on an individual level to a population level. Considering our findings, we propose ideas about how to measure and foster children's pre‐existing ideas about evolution.

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Young children’s impressionable use of teleology: the influence of question wording and questioned topic on teleological explanations for natural phenomena

Cited by 4 publications

References 21 publications

Using dialogic interventions to decrease children’s use of inappropriate teleological explanations

Using dialogic interventions to decrease children’s use of inappropriate teleological explanations

The relationship between biological function and teleology: Implications for biology education

About birds and bees, snails and trees: Children's ideas on animal and plant evolution

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