Thinking across levels of biological organizations: Does knowledge of genetics help students avoid teleological explanations of evolutionary phenomena

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Abstract

Several studies focused on the effects of teaching genetics knowledge in an evolutionary context . As selected chief findings, students' teleological explanations and their tendency to explain evolutionary change at the phenotypic level alone were found to decrease because of making knowledge of genetics available to the students. However, inert knowledge of genetics has also been reported  and often, genetics knowledge also surfaces in teleological explanations. As a consequence, we investigated, to what extent students who explain evolutionary change teleologically differ in their use of genetics knowledge from students who do not explain evolutionary change telologically. The sample consists of 206 high school students who participated in a randomized teaching experiment with a pre-post-test design involving a comparison group. One group experienced how selection impacts allele frequencies, whereas the other did not. The study builds on the categories used for coding student explanations in Kampourakis & Zogza (2009) and Jördens et al. (submitted). One of the major implications of this study is that genetics knowledge may be helpful for the students, but may not be an all-encompassing guarantee for avoiding teleological thinking.

Speakers from the University of Münster

Hammann, Marcus	Professur für Didaktik der Biologie (Prof. Hammann)
Jördens, Janina	Center for Biology Education (ZDB)