The Role of Visual Representations in Children's Learning about Biological Variability

生物变异是现代科学中最重要的概念之一。物种成员之间的变异性为遗传学、自然选择和进化理论提供了基础。然而，人们通常低估了一个物种在动物一生中以及从一代到下一代发生的变异性。儿童似乎尤其有认知偏见，认为一个物种的成员基本上是相同的。为了提高孩子们对生物学的学习，教育工作者需要更好的方法来培养孩子们对生物多样性的理解。图表和其他视觉表现形式在促进对生物变异性的学习方面很有用，但图表也可能会令人困惑。这个项目的重点是设计更好的可变性类型的视觉表现，例如生命阶段的可变性(例如，变态)和父母和后代之间的可变性(在遗传传递中)。通过研究如何进行更有效的视觉表征，这个项目将为改善科学教育的努力提供信息，并将提供有关儿童认知偏见如何更广泛地影响他们的科学思维的信息。该项目由EHR核心研究(ECR)项目授予威斯康星大学，该项目支持推进STEM学习基础研究文献的工作。为了研究视觉表征如何被用来促进关于生物变异性的学习和迁移，认知发展和教育领域的研究人员将重点研究两种类型的视觉表征：生命周期图和基因图。这项研究将调查三个关键问题。首先，将调查6至12岁儿童对遗传的信念，以检验他们对父母与子女之间特征一致性的期望有多大(即，在遗传传递方面)。其次，一系列研究将调查图表的特征如何影响儿童学习和传递有关生命周期和基因传播的知识。这些研究将探讨突出共性、避免无关细节和突出图表中的可变性是否会导致最佳学习和迁移。为了调查这些问题，将进行基于实验室的实验，比较儿童从不同目标方式的视觉表征中学习的情况。数据分析将解决儿童如何将他们的知识转移到作为学习任务重点的样本之外。第三，研究1和研究2的结果将被用于优化图表的设计，并将在儿童博物馆的科学讲习班和社区科学活动期间，采用测试前-干预-测试后的设计，调查这些优化图表对了解生物变化的影响。这方面的研究还将检验关于物种内可变性的有效学习活动是否支持儿童关于自然选择、进化和遗传的推理。产生更广泛影响的可能性是巨大的。使儿童(和成人)能够识别不同类型的变异性，可能会对他们的生物思维和生物教学的设计产生重大影响。更好地理解图表的特定视觉特征如何有助于或削弱科学理解，可能对设计和使用视觉表征在正式和非正式学习环境中传达科学信息具有重要意义。该项目还支持科学教育工作者和研究人员在认知发展方面的合作，为研究生和本科生提供培训机会。结果将在正式和非正式的科学学习环境中与学术研究人员和教育工作者分享。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Biological variation is among the most important ideas in modern science. Variability among members of a species provides the foundation for theories of genetics, natural selection, and evolution. However, people typically underestimate the amount of variability that occurs within a species over the life span of animals and from one generation to the next. Children especially seem to have cognitive biases that members of a species are largely identical. To improve children's learning about biology, educators need better ways to scaffold children's understanding of biological variability. Diagrams and other visual representations are useful in promoting learning about biological variability, but diagrams can also be confusing. This project focuses on designing better visual representations of important types of variability, such as variability across life stages (e.g., in metamorphosis) and variability between parent and offspring (in genetic transmission). By studying how to make more effective visual representations, this project will inform efforts to improve science education, and will also provide information about the ways in which children's cognitive biases influence their scientific thinking more generally. This project is supported by an award to the University of Wisconsin by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances the fundamental research literature on STEM learning. To investigate how visual representations can be used to promote learning and transfer about biological variability, researchers in cognitive development and education will focus on two types of visual representations: life cycle diagrams and genetic diagrams. The research will investigate three key issues. First, 6- to 12-year-old children's beliefs about inheritance will be investigated to examine how strongly they expect consistency of traits from parent to offspring (i.e., in genetic transmission). Second, a series of studies will investigate how features of diagrams affect children's learning and transfer of knowledge about the life cycle and about genetic transmission. The studies will address whether highlighting generality, avoiding extraneous details, and highlighting variability in diagrams lead to optimal learning and transfer. To investigate these issues, lab-based experiments will be carried out that compare children's learning from visual representations that vary in targeted ways. The data analysis will address how children transfer their knowledge beyond the exemplars that are the focus of the learning tasks. Third, the results of Studies 1 and 2 will be used to inform the design of optimized diagrams, and the effects of these optimized diagrams on learning about biological change will be investigated during science workshops at a children's museum and during community-based science events using a pre-test - intervention - post-test design. This aspect of the research will also examine whether effective learning activities about within-species variability support children's reasoning about natural selection, evolution, and inheritance. The potential for broader impacts is substantial. Enabling children (and adults) to recognize different types of variability could have a significant impact on their biological thought and on the design of biology instruction. Better understanding of how specific visual features of diagrams contribute to or detract from science understanding may have important implications for the design and use of visual representations to convey scientific information in both formal and informal learning environments. This project also supports collaboration between science educators and researchers in cognitive development, providing training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Results will be shared with academic researchers, and with educators in formal and informal science learning environments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.