The construct “nature of science” (NOS) has been advocated as an important goal
for students studying science for approximately 100 years (Central Association of
Science and Mathematics Teachers, 1907). Most recently, NOS has been advocated
as a critical educational outcome by various science education reform documents
worldwide (e.g., Australia, Canada, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States).
To be blunt, when it comes to NOS, one is hard pressed to find rhetoric arguing
against its importance as a prized educational outcome. Still, detractors do exist
(Winchester, 1993). The observation that NOS has been a perennial goal of science
education, and is now receiving increased emphasis, can be construed to mean that
high school graduates, and the general citizenry, do not possess (and never have
possessed) adequate views of NOS. The research reviewed later in this chapter provides clear support for such a notion. That said, has anything been lost? Is it really
important for students and the general citizenry to understand NOS? What have
we not accomplished because our students do not have good understandings of
NOS? What can we make of the obsession with NOS?

Nature of Science: Past, Present, and Future

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 ¼ 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 Natural selection is the principal mechanism of evolution, and the theory of evolution is of great importance as a unifying theory in biology education according to the National Science Standards (National Research Council, 1996). Yet, natural selection is misunderstood by many students. The litany of alternative conceptions regarding natural selection and evolution is long (Mayr, 1982; Clough & Driver, 1986; Good, Trowbridge, Demastes, Wandersee, Hafner, & Cummins, 1992; Scharmann & Harris, 1992; Cummins, Demastes & Hafner, 1994). Some studies

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Development and Evaluation of the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection

Examining Pedagogical Content Knowledge

∗The book reviewed is Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Project 2061, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford (1993), pp. 448, $21‐95 (pbk), ISBN 0‐19‐508986‐3.

Benchmarks for Science Literacy: a review symposium∗

Natural selection is one of the central mechanisms of evolutionary change and is the process responsible for the evolution of adaptive features. Without a working knowledge of natural selection, it is impossible to understand how or why living things have come to exhibit their diversity and complexity. An understanding of natural selection also is becoming increasingly relevant in practical contexts, including medicine, agriculture, and resource management. Unfortunately, studies indicate that natural selection is generally very poorly understood, even among many individuals with postsecondary biological education. This paper provides an overview of the basic process of natural selection, discusses the extent and possible causes of misunderstandings of the process, and presents a review of the most common misconceptions that must be corrected before a functional understanding of natural selection and adaptive evolution can be achieved.

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Understanding Natural Selection: Essential Concepts and Common Misconceptions

This study explores two differing perspectives of the nature of students' biological knowledge structures, conceptual frameworks, and p-prims. Students from four grade levels and from three regions of the United States were asked to explain a variety of biological phenomena. Students' responses to the interview probes were analyzed to describe 1) patterns in the nature of students' explanations across grade levels and interview probes, and 2) the consistency of students' explanations across individual interview probes and across the range of probes. The results were interpreted from both perspectives of knowledge structures. While definitive assertions supporting either perspective could not be made, each hypothesis was explored. Although the more prevalent description of student conceptions within a broader conceptual framework could not be discounted, the p-prim of need as a rationale for change was also found to offer a useful description of knowledge frameworks for this content area. The difficulties endemic to the use of biology for the study of basic knowledge structures are also discussed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed85:328–348, 2001.

Understanding students' explanations of biological phenomena: Conceptual frameworks or p‐prims?

This study describes the trends in students' explanations of biological change in organisms. A total of 96 student volunteers (8 students from each of 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th grades from 3 localities) were interviewed individually and each student was presented a series of graphics depicting natural phenomena. Students' explanations to questions of how something occurred were assigned to one of three categories (responses addressing how something occurred, why something occurred, and 'I don't know'). While the number of responses in each category was roughly equivalent in prominence across grade levels, the majority of students were unable to offer a causal explanation of how a phenomena occurred. An unexpected phenomenon was the students' predilection to redirect the interview question so they could answer them. If asked a how question, as they were in every interview instance, 32% the students answered with a 'why' response. The way biology is taught, the structure of biology or/and how we learn it coul...

The how's and why's of biological change: how learners neglect physical mechanisms in their search for meaning

The F-Sort of Biology Concepts was used to assess understanding of the relationships among 37 biology concepts by five groups: Preservice secondary science teachers, in-service biology teachers with 1–3 years of teaching experience, in-service biology teachers with 5 or more years of experience, scientists in any biological science field, and college seniors majoring in biology. Data collected from the F-sort were analyzed using latent partition analysis and alpha factor analysis with additional interpretation from multidimensional scaling. The subjects were asked to think aloud as they performed the F-sort and each session was audiotaped for later analysis. These analyses indicated that the biology major and experienced secondary science teachers were separated from the scientists by a dimension based on a deep-versus-surface structure understanding of the concepts. A second axis shows that scientists are separated from other groups by a fluid-versus-fixed cognitive structure dimension. That is, both experienced teachers and scientists were found to have well-constructed and ordered cognitive structures, but scientists were much more likely to see an item having a place in two or more categories, whereas experienced teachers tended to focus on only one aspect of an item, and therefore understanding that it rightfully belonged in only one category. It appears that teachers restructure their science knowledge as they become more experienced. There is an apparent transition from poorly organized to highly organized cognitive structures for biology concepts when comparing preservice, novice, and experienced teachers, respectively. The transition does not seem to be one achieving a deeper understanding of the biology concepts or to a greater degree of integration of the concepts, but rather a transition from a fairly large, loosely organized pool of biology concepts to one which is highly structured but limited to the expectations of the established curriculum. The results have implications for the well-known conjecture that teaching helps one better understand the content being taught.

Biology content cognitive structure: From science student to science teacher

Publisher Summary
There is a growing consensus that traditional quantitative assessment tools are largely inadequate for producing an adequately fine-grained description of both what learners know and how they build and revise that knowledge. In recent years, teachers, researchers, and curriculum planners have found that a rich understanding of the common alternative conceptions can be a useful guide for planning effective instruction. The selection of the task to be used in a structured interview, including any graphics or other props, is the most critical decision in planning an interview. The interview task should be tightly focused on the concept of interest and at a level of difficulty appropriate to the learner. It should be carefully structured to focus on likely conceptual difficulties based on prior experience with similar students. In interviews about instances, a student is typically presented with a specific set of examples and counterexamples of the concept of interest, and is asked to identify which cases are examples of the concept and then, to explain that decision.

Catherine L. Cummins

Papers

Understanding students' explanations of biological phenomena: Conceptual frameworks or p‐prims?

The how's and why's of biological change: how learners neglect physical mechanisms in their search for meaning

Biology content cognitive structure: From science student to science teacher

Chapter 4 – “what do you mean by that?” using structured interviews to assess science understanding

Evolution: Biological education's under-researched unifying theme