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    Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change

    Access Status
    Fulltext not available
    Authors
    McLure, Felicity
    Won, Mihye
    Treagust, David
    Date
    2020
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
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    Citation
    McLure, F. and Won, M. and Treagust, D. 2020. Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change. International Journal of Science Education.
    Source Title
    International Journal of Science Education
    DOI
    10.1080/09500693.2020.1767315
    ISSN
    0950-0693
    Faculty
    Faculty of Humanities
    School
    School of Education
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79394
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    The topic of natural selection presents challenges to high school students since it requires understanding of an emergent process, which is a missing schema for most students. Many interventions for teaching natural selection have limited effect in bringing about substantial ontological conceptual change. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a series of lessons to build understanding of natural selection as an emergent process. A conceptual change approach enabled students to develop explanations through their transfer of understanding when producing a series of student-generated representations, culminating in elaborated written explanations of evolutionary scenarios. This process was supported through small-group social construction of understanding, Socratic questioning in whole class discussions and teacher feedback. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare conceptual change in experimental and comparison grade 10 classes using pre/post tests and analysis of written explanations. Results showed significantly greater conceptual change in the experimental class than the comparison class in pre/post tests and adoption of many aspects of the scientific ontological model in written explanations. This approach may be further developed as a method for supporting high school students’ understanding of this difficult topic.

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