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1.
Natural selection as a mechanism of evolution is a central concept in biology; yet, most nonbiology‐majors do not thoroughly understand the theory even after instruction. Many alternative conceptions on this topic have been identified, indicating that the job of the instructor is a difficult one. This article presents a new diagnostic test to assess students' understanding of natural selection. The test items are based on actual scientific studies of natural selection, whereas previous tests have employed hypothetical situations that were often misleading or oversimplified. The Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS) is a 20‐item multiple choice test that employs common alternative conceptions as distractors. An original 12‐item version of the test was field‐tested with 170 nonmajors in 6 classes and 43 biology majors in 1 class at 3 community colleges. The test scores of one subset of nonmajors (n = 7) were compared with the students' performances in semistructured interviews. There was a positive correlation between the test scores and the interview scores. The current 20‐item version of the CINS was field‐tested with 206 students in a nonmajors' general biology course. The face validity, internal validity, reliability, and readability of the CINS are discussed. Results indicate that the CINS will be a valuable tool for instructors. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 952–978, 2002 相似文献
2.
From the perspective of social cognitive theory, the motivation of students to learn science in college courses was examined. The students—367 science majors and 313 nonscience majors—responded to the Science Motivation Questionnaire II, which assessed five motivation components: intrinsic motivation, self‐determination, self‐efficacy, career motivation, and grade motivation. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provided evidence of questionnaire construct validity. The motivation components, especially self‐efficacy, were related to the students' college science grade point averages. The science majors scored higher than the nonscience majors on all of the motivation components. Among both science majors and nonscience majors, men had higher self‐efficacy than women, and women had higher self‐determination than men. The findings suggest that the questionnaire is a valid and efficient tool for assessing components of students' motivation to learn science in college courses, and that the components play a role in students' science achievement. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 1159–1176, 2011 相似文献
3.
Kathryn E. Perez Anna Hiatt Gregory K. Davis Caleb Trujillo Donald P. French Mark Terry Rebecca M. Price 《CBE life sciences education》2013,12(4):665-675
The American Association for the Advancement of Science 2011 report Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education encourages the teaching of developmental biology as an important part of teaching evolution. Recently, however, we found that biology majors often lack the developmental knowledge needed to understand evolutionary developmental biology, or “evo-devo.” To assist in efforts to improve evo-devo instruction among undergraduate biology majors, we designed a concept inventory (CI) for evolutionary developmental biology, the EvoDevoCI. The CI measures student understanding of six core evo-devo concepts using four scenarios and 11 multiple-choice items, all inspired by authentic scientific examples. Distracters were designed to represent the common conceptual difficulties students have with each evo-devo concept. The tool was validated by experts and administered at four institutions to 1191 students during preliminary (n = 652) and final (n = 539) field trials. We used student responses to evaluate the readability, difficulty, discriminability, validity, and reliability of the EvoDevoCI, which included items ranging in difficulty from 0.22–0.55 and in discriminability from 0.19–0.38. Such measures suggest the EvoDevoCI is an effective tool for assessing student understanding of evo-devo concepts and the prevalence of associated common conceptual difficulties among both novice and advanced undergraduate biology majors. 相似文献
4.
David E. Long 《科学教学研究杂志》2012,49(1):122-139
This paper analyzes recent research conclusions regarding biology teacher attitudes toward evolution, and the variable implementation of evolution in the high schools nationwide. Berkman and Plutzer (2010. Evolution, creationism, and the battle to control America's classrooms. New York: Cambridge University Press) conclude that due to a large portion of high school biology teachers compromising or downplaying evolution in the curriculum, the placement of evolution specific courses in biology teacher preparation programs will steer evolution deniers away from the field. In this paper, such arguments are situated in a larger historical and philosophical context of science education. By discussing recent sociological insight into the religiosity of education majors and education faculty, new questions are raised about student and teacher ontology, what this means for understanding science, the politics of science teacher education programs, and the epistemological and ethical limits of science education standards to dissolve Creationism. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 122–139, 2012 相似文献
5.
Gale M. Sinatra Sherry A. Southerland Frances McConaughy James W. Demastes 《科学教学研究杂志》2003,40(5):510-528
We examined the intersection of students' understanding and acceptance of evolution and their epistemological beliefs and cognitive dispositions. Based on previous research, we hypothesized there would be a relation between understanding and acceptance. We also hypothesized that students who viewed knowledge as changing and who have a disposition toward open‐minded thinking would be more likely to accept the scientific explanation of human evolution, and that beliefs and dispositions would not be related to acceptance of a topic that is generally perceived as noncontroversial. Ninety‐three undergraduate students enrolled in a nonmajors biology class completed measures of their (a) content knowledge of evolution and photosynthesis and respiration; (b) acceptance of theories of animal evolution, human evolution, and photosynthesis; and (c) epistemological beliefs and cognitive dispositions. Although our findings did reveal a significant relation between knowledge and reported acceptance for photosynthesis, there was no relation between knowledge and acceptance of animal or human evolution. Epistemological beliefs were related to acceptance, but only to the acceptance of human evolution. There was no relation between students' epistemological beliefs and their general acceptance of animal evolution or photosynthesis. Three subscales, Ambiguous Information, Actively Open‐Minded Thinking, and Belief Identification, were significantly correlated with understanding evolutionary theory. We argue these findings underscore the importance of intentional level constructs, such as epistemological beliefs and cognitive dispositions, in the learning of potentially controversial topics. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 510–528, 2003 相似文献
6.
Educated Papua New Guineans’ conceptual ecologies need to accommodate competing and conflicting traditional ethnoscientific, Western religious and modern scientific paradigms. Papua New Guinea is a constitutionally self-declared ‘Christian country’ and evolution is a controversial issue. The upper secondary school biology syllabus contains a terminating unit on evolution but the curriculum is of expatriate design and the rapid localisation of senior educational positions makes the views of indigenous teaching personnel a high research priority, particularly in the light of the current upgrading of secondary teacher training to degree level. This paper presents data arising from a study of trainee primary and secondary science teachers’ views towards evolution education. Primary science trainees were found to exhibit a poor awareness of the centrality of evolution to modern biology. For secondary science trainees, it was found that exposure to upper secondary school biology, in spite of adding little to students’ knowledge about evolution, was associated with their increasingly positive attitudes towards evolution education, as was the dual acceptance of evolution and religious belief. 相似文献
7.
Steven W. Rissing 《CBE life sciences education》2013,12(3):429-440
Most American colleges and universities offer gateway biology courses to meet the needs of three undergraduate audiences: biology and related science majors, many of whom will become biomedical researchers; premedical students meeting medical school requirements and preparing for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT); and students completing general education (GE) graduation requirements. Biology textbooks for these three audiences present a topic scope and sequence that correlates with the topic scope and importance ratings of the biology content specifications for the MCAT regardless of the intended audience. Texts for “nonmajors,” GE courses appear derived directly from their publisher''s majors text. Topic scope and sequence of GE texts reflect those of “their” majors text and, indirectly, the MCAT. MCAT term density of GE texts equals or exceeds that of their corresponding majors text. Most American universities require a GE curriculum to promote a core level of academic understanding among their graduates. This includes civic scientific literacy, recognized as an essential competence for the development of public policies in an increasingly scientific and technological world. Deriving GE biology and related science texts from majors texts designed to meet very different learning objectives may defeat the scientific literacy goals of most schools’ GE curricula. 相似文献
8.
This study examines how a first‐year biology teacher facilitates a series of whole‐class discussions about evolution during the implementation of a problem‐based unit. A communicative theoretical perspective is adopted wherein evolution discussions are viewed as social events that the teacher can frame intellectually (i.e., present or organize as exchanges of an intellectual nature). Furthermore, we characterize teacher framing of evolution discussion in terms of five communicative components: focus, orientation, social structure, mood, and participatory nature. Our video‐based analyses revealed that the teacher paid little attention to the conceptual contents and history of evolutionary theory, framing evolution discussions as moderately playful and partially mandatory events focused mainly on student sharing of ideas (i.e., personal opinions) and polite communication of evolution. Within this framing, the teacher adopted the role of a neutral (though admittedly biased) facilitator with an intermediary expert status (less knowledgeable than evolutionary biologists) and who was legally required (though also inclined) to discuss evolution. The main significance of this study is that it provides new and useful insights into social phenomena such as respect, politeness, and humor in the context of evolution discussion as well as a robust theoretical framework for analyzing evolution discussion from a social perspective. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 257–280, 2011 相似文献
9.
Kyriacos Athanasiou Evangelia Mavrikaki 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(8):1262-1285
The primary objective of this research was to compare various groups of Greek university students for their level of knowledge of Evolution by means of Natural Selection (ENS). For the purpose of the study, we used a well known questionnaire the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS) and 352 biology majors and non-majors students from the University of Athens took part in it. A principal components analysis revealed problems with the items designed to assess the concepts of population stability, differential survival and variation inheritable, therefore these items need to be reconsidered. Nonetheless, the results of the CINS for each Greek sub-group showed that the higher the involvement in evolution education, the higher the students' performances on the CINS test. This linear correlation, together with other evidence, supports the CINS authors' claims about the usefulness of the CINS as an assessment of instruction. Unfortunately, Greek university students gave many teleological and proximate answers to many of the CINS items. Comparisons between least and most evolutionary educated university students revealed that the latter gave more evolutionary answers. Oddly, advanced biology majors students did not show an improvement in all the 20 items of the CINS (only in 14 out of the 20 items) compared to novice biology students. They even gave more teleological answers to the concept natural resources are limited than novice biology majors students. Finally, Greek university students' level of knowledge of ENS seems to be closer to Canadian than US students'. 相似文献
10.
One of the main objectives of many science educators is to enroll students into science majors and careers. Researchers have investigated students' views of science in terms of factors and influences that guide students to choose science as a career. However, few investigations exist that have studied the forms of language culture makes available for articulating possible careers generally or the ways of grounding (justifying) these possibilities particularly. The purpose of this study is to investigate ways of using language for supporting justifications of career choices in an interview situation. Thirteen high school biology students were interviewed about their career choices. Drawing on discursive psychology as theory and method, we identify four interpretative repertoires that are deployed during the interviews: the (a) formative, (b) performative, (c) consequent, and (d) potential repertoires. These interpretative repertoires do not merely characterize the discourse about different science‐related professions but in fact co‐articulate different science‐related identities. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 1114–1136, 2009 相似文献
11.
The purpose of this study was to explore how some university biology majors in Beirut, Lebanon, accommodate the theory of biological evolution with their existing religious beliefs. Sixty-two students enrolled in a required senior biology seminar responded to open-ended questions that addressed (a) their understanding of the theory of evolution, (b) their perception of conflict between this theory and religion, and (c) whether the theory of evolution clashed with their own beliefs about the world. Based on their responses, 15 students were selected for an in-depth exploration of their written responses. Students' answers clustered under 1 of 4 main positions: for evolution, against evolution, compromise, and neutral. The authors suggest that teaching students about the nature of scientific facts, theories, and evidence is more likely to enhance understanding of evolutionary theory if students are given the opportunity to discuss their values and beliefs in relation to scientific knowledge. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 34: 429–445, 1997. 相似文献
12.
13.
This study investigated the relations among preservice elementary teachers’ ideas about evolution, their understanding of
basic science concepts and college science coursework. Forty-two percent of 240 participants did not accept the theory of
human evolution, but held inconsistent ideas about related topics, such as co-existence of humans and dinosaurs and plate
tectonics. Accepting the theory of evolution was positively correlated with correctly answering the three other questions
related to the age of Earth. Furthermore, participants who rejected evolution scored significantly lower on a test of basic
science concepts than did participants who held accurate views on human evolution. Study results revealed no apparent association
between completion of advanced college science courses and acceptance of evolutionary theory or understanding of science concepts.
Implications for elementary science teacher education were discussed. 相似文献
14.
Barbara Mirel Anuj Kumar Paige Nong Gang Su Fan Meng 《Journal of Science Education and Technology》2016,25(1):91-110
Life scientists increasingly use visual analytics to explore large data sets and generate hypotheses. Undergraduate biology majors should be learning these same methods. Yet visual analytics is one of the most underdeveloped areas of undergraduate biology education. This study sought to determine the feasibility of undergraduate biology majors conducting exploratory analysis using the same interactive data visualizations as practicing scientists. We examined 22 upper level undergraduates in a genomics course as they engaged in a case-based inquiry with an interactive heat map. We qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed students’ visual analytic behaviors, reasoning and outcomes to identify student performance patterns, commonly shared efficiencies and task completion. We analyzed students’ successes and difficulties in applying knowledge and skills relevant to the visual analytics case and related gaps in knowledge and skill to associated tool designs. Findings show that undergraduate engagement in visual analytics is feasible and could be further strengthened through tool usability improvements. We identify these improvements. We speculate, as well, on instructional considerations that our findings suggested may also enhance visual analytics in case-based modules. 相似文献
15.
Introductory biology courses are frequently offered separately to biology majors and nonbiology majors, with the assumption that the two groups of students are different enough to merit different courses. To assess the evidence behind this assumption, we compared students in two different genetics classes at the University of Colorado–Boulder, one class for nonscience majors (nonmajors) and the other class for biology majors and students planning a biology-related career (majors), to see whether these two groups of students were fundamentally different in performance and attitudes. To measure content knowledge, we administered identical assessments to both groups of students during the semester: a validated pre- and postcontent assessment (Genetics Concept Assessment), ungraded quizzes after problem-solving sessions, and questions on each exam. We measured attitudes, study time, and study techniques through online surveys. Majors outperformed nonmajors on content assessments, finishing with significantly higher learning gains. Nonmajors and majors also differed in their motivation, interest, study time, and expert-level of beliefs. We suggest that focusing on the process of science and its connection to students'' lives will better engage and motivate nonmajors while still helping them learn the fundamental concepts of genetics. 相似文献
16.
Biology undergraduate students learn about vertebrate skull structure, function, and evolution. In the Integrative Anatomy course at Central Washington University, students gain a broad perspective on vertebrate (including human) anatomy, histology, and embryology in an evolutionary context. In this issue of ASE, Darda summarizes data gathered from biology departments at fouryear undergraduate institutions in Washington State and suggests how the undergraduate anatomy curriculum might be modified to meet student needs (both pre‐health career students and “regular” biology majors) given the constraints of staffing and time. Pictured in the photograph (taken by CWU photographer Richard Villacres) are Dr. David Darda (on the right) and his students Jessica Christnacht, Tyler Dexter and Spencer Moen. 相似文献
17.
Rebecca L. P. Jordan Justin Garwood Woodrow Trathen 《Learning disabilities research & practice》2019,34(4):185-193
In an era of teacher quality reforms, one overlooked area for assessing readiness for teaching is education majors’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. This gap is unfortunate, as teaching reading is a common responsibility among general and special education teachers. In the current push for RTI—one in which more general education teachers are increasingly called upon to provide reading support to students with learning disabilities, in addition to the support received from special educators—it is important to determine preservice teachers’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. Self‐efficacy is an important construct to consider as it is related to eventual teacher attrition. The purpose of the current study was to develop a scale to measure elementary and special education majors’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. With a sample of 110 education majors, a three‐factor scale was developed and demonstrated strong psychometric properties. Implications for the future of teacher education programs are discussed. 相似文献
18.
Chi‐Chin Chin 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(13):1549-1570
Scientific literacy and attitudes toward science play an important role in human daily lives. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether first‐year pre‐service teachers in colleges in Taiwan have a satisfactory level of scientific literacy. The domains of scientific literacy selected in this study include: (1) science content; (2) the interaction between science, technology and society (STS); (3) the nature of science; and (4) attitudes toward science. In this study, the instruments used were Chinese translations of the Test of Basic Scientific Literacy (TBSL) and the Test of Science‐related Attitudes. Elementary education majors (n = 141) and science education majors (n = 138) from four teachers’ colleges responded to these instruments. The statistical results from the tests revealed that, in general, the basic scientific literacy of first‐year pre‐service teachers was at a satisfactory level. Of the six scales covered in this study, the pre‐service teachers displayed the highest literacy in health science, STS, and life science. Literacy in the areas of the nature of science and earth science was rated lowest. The results also showed that science education majors scored significantly higher in physical science, life science, nature of science, science content, and the TBSL than elementary science majors. Males performed better than females in earth science, life science, science content, and the TBSL. Next, elementary education majors responded with more “don’t know” responses than science education majors. In general, the pre‐service teachers were moderately positive in terms of attitudes toward science while science education majors had more positive attitudes toward science. There was no significant difference in attitudes between genders. Previous experience in science indicated more positive attitudes toward science. The results from stepwise regression revealed that STS, the nature of science, and attitudes toward science could explain 50.6% and 60.2% variance in science content in elementary education and science education majors, respectively. For science education majors, the first three scales—the nature of science, health science and physical science—determined basic scientific literacy. However, for elementary education majors, the top three factors were physical science, life science and the nature of science. Based on these results, several strategies for developing the professional abilities of science teachers have been recommended for inclusion in pre‐service programs. 相似文献
19.
Research on factors that shape recruitment and retention in undergraduate science majors currently is highly fragmented and in need of an integrative research framework. Such a framework should incorporate analyses of the various levels of organization that characterize academic communities (i.e., the broad institutional level, the departmental level, and the student level), and should also provide ways to study the interactions occurring within and between these structural levels. We propose that academic communities are analogous to ecosystems, and that the research paradigms of modern community ecology can provide the necessary framework, as well as new and innovative approaches to a very complex area. This article also presents the results of a pilot study that demonstrates the promise of this approach at the student level. We administered a questionnaire based on expectancy-value theory to undergraduates enrolled in introductory biology courses. Itself an integrative approach, expectancy-value theory views achievement-related behavior as a joint function of the person's expectancy of success in the behavior and the subjective value placed on such success. Our results indicated: (a) significant gender differences in the underlying factor structures of expectations and values related to the discipline of biology, (b) expectancy-value factors significantly distinguished biology majors from nonmajors, and (c) expectancy-value factors significantly predicted students' intent to enroll in future biology courses. We explore the expectancy-value framework as an operationally integrative framework in our ecological model for studying academic communities, especially in the context of assessing the underrepresentation of women and minorities in the sciences. Future research directions as well as practical implications are also discussed. 相似文献
20.
Patricia H. Miller Jennifer Slawinski Blessing Stephanie Schwartz 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(4):363-381
This study examined gender differences in 79 high‐school students’ attitudes towards their science classes, their perceptions of science and scientists, and their views about majoring in science. The study identified some of the subtleties underlying females’ low participation in, and interest in, science documented in previous research. Four themes emerged from responses on the rating scales and questionnaire. First, even when females planned to major in science, they were more interested than males in the people‐oriented aspects of their planned majors. Second, biology was the one exception to females’ low interest in science. Third, females often planned a science major mainly because they needed a science background in order to enter a health profession such as medicine or physical therapy. Fourth, females generally found science uninteresting and the scientific lifestyle (as perceived by them) unattractive. Implications for teaching science were discussed. 相似文献