Cross‐sectional study of students' molecular explanations of inheritance patterns
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21392707 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Moraima Castro‐Faix (0000-0003-0668-8793, Rutgers University New Brunswick New Jersey USA, corresponding author), Ravit Golan Duncan (0000-0001-8655-8651, Rutgers University New Brunswick New Jersey USA) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 106 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 412-447 |
| Publication date | 2022-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0036-8326 • E-ISSN: 1098-237X |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/sce.21692 |
| OpenAlex | W3216651863 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 71 |
Genetics is a core topic in the biology curriculum of many countries. Learning genetics is difficult for multiple reasons, including the need to reason about complex mechanisms—and to link mechanisms—that occur at different time and space scales. Previous research in genetics education explores students' understandings of inheritance patterns or their understandings of molecular genetics; only a handful of studies examined how students understand the connection between molecular mechanisms and inheritance patterns. Moreover, we know little about how such understandings develop over the secondary and undergraduate levels. To address this gap, we conducted a cross‐sectional interview study with middle school, high school, undergraduate, and graduate students after they had experienced “status‐quo” instruction in genetics. We analyzed student responses using a cognitive model of molecular genetics that describes two key domain‐specific knowledge resources: heuristics and explanatory schemas. Our findings extended this model to account for reasoning about inheritance patterns as well as identifying the knowledge resources used by students with different levels of education. This allowed us to present a snapshot of a progression describing the gradual use of these heuristics and schemas across different grades. We discuss the implications of the tentative progression for instruction aimed at supporting reasoning across time and space scales in genetics
Biology · Curriculum · Heuristics · Inheritance (genetic algorithm) · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Science education · Computer Science · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies · Genetics · Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research · Psychology · Science Education and Pedagogy
Quantifying Qualitative Analyses of Verbal Data
Is It a Challenge or a Threat? A Dual-Process Model of Teachers' Cognition and Appraisal Processes During Conceptual Change
The co-dependency concept
Why is science difficult to learn? Things are seldom what they seem
Patterns of informal reasoning in the context of socioscientific decision making
From Basic to Humane Genomics Literacy
Data‐driven refinements of a genetics learning progression
Genomics literacy matters
Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis
Genetic essentialism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |