The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance
Prior work has shown that many undergraduate students have misconceptions about genetic inheritance, even after they take genetics courses. Visual representations, such as pedigree diagrams, are commonly used in genetics instruction, and they help students quickly visualize the phenotypes of multipl...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2024-03-01
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| Series: | Education Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/3/307 |
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| author | David Menendez Andrea Marquardt Donovan Olympia N. Mathiaparanam Rebecca E. Klapper Seung Heon Yoo Karl S. Rosengren Martha W. Alibali |
| author_facet | David Menendez Andrea Marquardt Donovan Olympia N. Mathiaparanam Rebecca E. Klapper Seung Heon Yoo Karl S. Rosengren Martha W. Alibali |
| author_sort | David Menendez |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Prior work has shown that many undergraduate students have misconceptions about genetic inheritance, even after they take genetics courses. Visual representations, such as pedigree diagrams, are commonly used in genetics instruction, and they help students quickly visualize the phenotypes of multiple generations. In Study 1, we examined whether presenting a pedigree diagram of a wolf’s eye color in a rich and realistic manner (i.e., with rich perceptual images that resemble real animals) or in an abstract manner (i.e., with circles and squares representing animals) would help undergraduates learn from a brief, online lesson on inheritance of the wolf’s eye color, and whether they would transfer what they learned when reasoning about eye color in other species (near transfer) and other traits in other species (mid- and far transfer). Counter to our hypothesis, students transferred more with the rich diagram. In Study 2, we compared the rich diagram from Study 1 to a perceptually bland diagram (i.e., with color and textural features removed). There were no differences in students’ learning or transfer between the diagrams. These results suggest that realistic elements that are attention grabbing and easily interpretable by students can be beneficial for transfer in online lessons. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T18:22:51Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d6ec0dc32afa41f8ad70ad3a151c894a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2227-7102 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T18:22:51Z |
| publishDate | 2024-03-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Education Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-d6ec0dc32afa41f8ad70ad3a151c894a2024-03-27T13:34:28ZengMDPI AGEducation Sciences2227-71022024-03-0114330710.3390/educsci14030307The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic InheritanceDavid Menendez0Andrea Marquardt Donovan1Olympia N. Mathiaparanam2Rebecca E. Klapper3Seung Heon Yoo4Karl S. Rosengren5Martha W. Alibali6Department of Psychology, University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USADepartment of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USADepartment of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14611, USADepartment of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14611, USADepartment of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14611, USADepartment of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14611, USADepartment of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USAPrior work has shown that many undergraduate students have misconceptions about genetic inheritance, even after they take genetics courses. Visual representations, such as pedigree diagrams, are commonly used in genetics instruction, and they help students quickly visualize the phenotypes of multiple generations. In Study 1, we examined whether presenting a pedigree diagram of a wolf’s eye color in a rich and realistic manner (i.e., with rich perceptual images that resemble real animals) or in an abstract manner (i.e., with circles and squares representing animals) would help undergraduates learn from a brief, online lesson on inheritance of the wolf’s eye color, and whether they would transfer what they learned when reasoning about eye color in other species (near transfer) and other traits in other species (mid- and far transfer). Counter to our hypothesis, students transferred more with the rich diagram. In Study 2, we compared the rich diagram from Study 1 to a perceptually bland diagram (i.e., with color and textural features removed). There were no differences in students’ learning or transfer between the diagrams. These results suggest that realistic elements that are attention grabbing and easily interpretable by students can be beneficial for transfer in online lessons.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/3/307visualizationabstractnessgeneticsbiology educationperceptual richness |
| spellingShingle | David Menendez Andrea Marquardt Donovan Olympia N. Mathiaparanam Rebecca E. Klapper Seung Heon Yoo Karl S. Rosengren Martha W. Alibali The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance Education Sciences visualization abstractness genetics biology education perceptual richness |
| title | The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance |
| title_full | The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance |
| title_fullStr | The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance |
| title_short | The Role of Visual Representations in Undergraduate Students’ Learning about Genetic Inheritance |
| title_sort | role of visual representations in undergraduate students learning about genetic inheritance |
| topic | visualization abstractness genetics biology education perceptual richness |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/3/307 |
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