Thinking Evolutionarily Evolution Education Across the Life Sciences: Summary of a Convocation (2012) / Chapter Skim
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3 Learning About Evolution: The Evidence Base
3 Learning About Evolution: The Evidence Base
Pages 25-32
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From page 25... ...
To present what is known and not known about the teaching and learning of evolution -- which is a standard feature of convening events organized by the Academies -- Ross Nehm, associate professor of science education at Ohio State University, gave an overview of the research literature on evolution education and then talked in more detail about his own research. THE EVIDENCE BASE The literature on teaching and learning about evolution is extensive.
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From page 26... ...
One conclusion is obvious, Nehm said: "We need to do some randomized controlled trials to see what works causally in terms of evolution education." Nehm also pointed out that documenting learning outcomes is critically important in education research. According to the report Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment (National Research Council, 2001)
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From page 27... ...
"This is a call to action," said Nehm. "We need to gather and do a national randomized controlled trial of some of the most likely and agreed upon variables and test their causal impact on students' learning of evolution." NOVICE TO EXPERT REASONING In his own research, Nehm and his colleagues have been studying how different groups, from novice to expert, think about problems.1 Using performance-based measures in which research participants are asked to solve evolutionary problems, they have looked at 400 people -- including non-majors who have completed an introductory biology course, students who have completed a course in evolution, students who have completed an evolution course as well as more advanced coursework, and a group of biology Ph.D.
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From page 28... ...
People learn more about evolution as they take more courses, but a surprising number do not get rid of their misconceptions. Moreover, as shown in Figure 3-1, up to 25 percent of the advanced majors who have taken an evolution course and other advanced courses still construct mixed models of evolutionary explanations that combine naïve and scientific ideas.
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From page 29... ...
The importance of surface features has received almost no attention in evolution education, Nehm observed. Introductory biology textbooks use a variety of contexts but never alert students that bacterial resistance to antibiotics is no different from the many other examples of natural selec tion being described.
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From page 30... ...
And yet we pay no attention to this in any textbook or in any assessment." The bottom line is that "surface features matter, and we need to be more precise in our instructional strategies to deal with these." Because misconceptions are surface-feature specific, instructional examples must be carefully chosen. Furthermore, assessments of competency must include authentic production tasks, such as explaining how evolutionary change occurs, not just fragmented knowledge selection tasks.
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From page 31... ...
National Research Council.
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