Teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms: can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings?
Abstract Background Despite the importance of understanding the mechanism of natural selection for both academic success and everyday decision-making, this concept is one of the most challenging to learn in contemporary science. In addition to cumulative socio-cultural influences, intuitive cognitiv...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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BMC
2020-05-01
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| Series: | Evolution: Education and Outreach |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12052-020-00127-7 |
| _version_ | 1818347984950132736 |
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| author | Sarah A. Brown Samuel Ronfard Deborah Kelemen |
| author_facet | Sarah A. Brown Samuel Ronfard Deborah Kelemen |
| author_sort | Sarah A. Brown |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Background Despite the importance of understanding the mechanism of natural selection for both academic success and everyday decision-making, this concept is one of the most challenging to learn in contemporary science. In addition to cumulative socio-cultural influences, intuitive cognitive biases such as the teleological bias—the early developing tendency to explain phenomena in terms of function or purpose—contribute to the difficulty of accurate learning when the process is taught in high school or later. In this work, we therefore investigate—for the first time—the viability of a teacher-led classroom-based storybook intervention for teaching natural selection in early elementary school. The intervention was designed to counteract teleological explanations of adaptation. In consequence, we specifically examined the nature and extent of elementary school children’s teleological reasoning about biological trait change before and after this intervention. Results Second and third grade students demonstrated a variety of misunderstandings at pretest, including teleological preconceptions. Most of these teleological ideas were explicitly accompanied by incorrect mechanistic ideas, confirming that the teleological reasoning observed in this young sample reflected fundamental misunderstandings of adaptation as a goal-directed event. Overall, learning from the classroom intervention was substantial, with students performing significantly better on all measures of natural selection understanding at posttest. Interestingly, explicit teleological reasoning displayed at the pretest did not have a differentially greater impact on learning than other kinds of marked pretest misunderstandings. One explanation for this might be that children displaying teleological misunderstandings at pretest also tended to demonstrate more biological factual knowledge than other students. Another explanation might be that pretest misunderstandings that were not overtly teleological were, nevertheless, implicitly teleological due to the nature of the mechanisms that they referenced. The differential impact of teleological preconceptions on learning might therefore have been underestimated. Conclusions In summary, early elementary school children show substantial abilities to accurately learn natural selection from a limited but scalable classroom-based storybook intervention. While children often display explicit teleological preconceptions, it is unclear whether these ideas represent greater impediments to learning about adaptation than other substantial misunderstandings. Reasons for this, and limitations of the present research, are discussed. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T17:42:51Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7a3e11739872493a84025510f922507a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1936-6426 1936-6434 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T17:42:51Z |
| publishDate | 2020-05-01 |
| publisher | BMC |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Evolution: Education and Outreach |
| spelling | doaj.art-7a3e11739872493a84025510f922507a2022-12-21T23:36:41ZengBMCEvolution: Education and Outreach1936-64261936-64342020-05-0113111910.1186/s12052-020-00127-7Teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms: can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings?Sarah A. Brown0Samuel Ronfard1Deborah Kelemen2Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston UniversityDepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston UniversityDepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston UniversityAbstract Background Despite the importance of understanding the mechanism of natural selection for both academic success and everyday decision-making, this concept is one of the most challenging to learn in contemporary science. In addition to cumulative socio-cultural influences, intuitive cognitive biases such as the teleological bias—the early developing tendency to explain phenomena in terms of function or purpose—contribute to the difficulty of accurate learning when the process is taught in high school or later. In this work, we therefore investigate—for the first time—the viability of a teacher-led classroom-based storybook intervention for teaching natural selection in early elementary school. The intervention was designed to counteract teleological explanations of adaptation. In consequence, we specifically examined the nature and extent of elementary school children’s teleological reasoning about biological trait change before and after this intervention. Results Second and third grade students demonstrated a variety of misunderstandings at pretest, including teleological preconceptions. Most of these teleological ideas were explicitly accompanied by incorrect mechanistic ideas, confirming that the teleological reasoning observed in this young sample reflected fundamental misunderstandings of adaptation as a goal-directed event. Overall, learning from the classroom intervention was substantial, with students performing significantly better on all measures of natural selection understanding at posttest. Interestingly, explicit teleological reasoning displayed at the pretest did not have a differentially greater impact on learning than other kinds of marked pretest misunderstandings. One explanation for this might be that children displaying teleological misunderstandings at pretest also tended to demonstrate more biological factual knowledge than other students. Another explanation might be that pretest misunderstandings that were not overtly teleological were, nevertheless, implicitly teleological due to the nature of the mechanisms that they referenced. The differential impact of teleological preconceptions on learning might therefore have been underestimated. Conclusions In summary, early elementary school children show substantial abilities to accurately learn natural selection from a limited but scalable classroom-based storybook intervention. While children often display explicit teleological preconceptions, it is unclear whether these ideas represent greater impediments to learning about adaptation than other substantial misunderstandings. Reasons for this, and limitations of the present research, are discussed.http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12052-020-00127-7EvolutionNatural selectionScience educationTeleologyCognitive biasesClassroom intervention |
| spellingShingle | Sarah A. Brown Samuel Ronfard Deborah Kelemen Teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms: can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings? Evolution: Education and Outreach Evolution Natural selection Science education Teleology Cognitive biases Classroom intervention |
| title | Teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms: can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings? |
| title_full | Teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms: can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings? |
| title_fullStr | Teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms: can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms: can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings? |
| title_short | Teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms: can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings? |
| title_sort | teaching natural selection in early elementary classrooms can a storybook intervention reduce teleological misunderstandings |
| topic | Evolution Natural selection Science education Teleology Cognitive biases Classroom intervention |
| url | http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12052-020-00127-7 |
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