Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change
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 conceptu...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
2020
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79394 |
| _version_ | 1848764047211626496 |
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| author | McLure, Felicity Won, Mihye Treagust, David |
| author_facet | McLure, Felicity Won, Mihye Treagust, David |
| author_sort | McLure, Felicity |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:13:08Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-79394 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:13:08Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-793942020-08-05T04:39:44Z Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change McLure, Felicity Won, Mihye Treagust, David 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. 2020 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79394 10.1080/09500693.2020.1767315 Taylor & Francis restricted |
| spellingShingle | McLure, Felicity Won, Mihye Treagust, David Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change |
| title | Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change |
| title_full | Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change |
| title_fullStr | Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change |
| title_full_unstemmed | Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change |
| title_short | Students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change |
| title_sort | students’ understanding of the emergent processes of natural selection: the need for ontological conceptual change |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79394 |