Emerging Research-Empirical Research--Evolving Minds: Children's Learning of Natural Selection from Picture Books

这一研究项目的目标是设计课堂干预措施，引导学生通过使用图画书作为教学工具，通过自然选择对生物适应有一个基本的理解。该计划得到了相关领域专家的支持，旨在帮助伍斯特公立学区32所学校的400名幼稚园至二年级(K-2)学生，开发出能向他们传达复杂科学信息的“量身定制”图画书。这项研究的问题包括：(1)是否有可能通过使用图画故事书在K-2年级的课堂上培养对自然选择适应的科学、准确和富有成效的理解；(2)这种课堂干预的最有效组成部分是什么；(3)当用人类或非人类动物来解释复杂的生物学概念时，幼儿是否更准确地学习了复杂的生物学概念；以及(4)早期关于自然选择机制的教学是否改变了幼儿未受过教育的倾向，即通过参照功能来解释自然实体，目的论偏见是年龄较大的学生科学推理不准确的核心。这项研究建立在NSF支持的初步研究的基础上，将包括四项单独的研究，每项研究都建立在从前一项研究中吸取的经验教训的基础上。前三项研究将包括前测、干预、即时和延迟后测设计，以探索K-2年级学生对自然选择逻辑的学习和概括的个体水平变化。研究四将是课堂层面的干预，其结构取决于前三项研究积累的智慧。它将包括与一小群孩子一起阅读图画书，然后评估他们的学习情况。这些循序渐进的研究将由提倡者口头实施。

The goal of this research project is to design classroom-level interventions that will guide students toward a basic understanding of biological adaptation through natural selection using picture books as pedagogical tools of instruction. The proposer engages support from experts in related fields to help develop "tailor-made" picture books to convey complex scientific information to 400 kindergarten through second grade (K-2) students in 32 schools in the Worcester Public School District. The questions for the study include: (1) whether it is possible to foster a scientifically accurate and productive understanding of adaptation by natural selection in Grades K-2 classrooms using picture storybooks; (2) what the most effective components of such a classroom intervention are; (3) whether complex biological concepts are more accurately learned by young children when explanations are couched in terms of human or in terms of non-human animals; and (4) whether early instruction about the mechanism of natural selection modifies young children's untutored tendency to explain natural entities by reference to function, a teleological bias is at the heart of older students' scientifically inaccurate reasoning. Building on a NSF-supported pilot study, this research will consist of four individual studies, each building on lessons-learned from the one before. The first three studies will include a pre-test, intervention, immediate, and delayed post-test design to explore individual-level changes in grade K-2 students' learning and generalization about the logic of natural selection. Study four will be a classroom-level intervention whose structure depends on wisdom accumulated from the first three studies. It will involve picture book reading sessions with small groups of children followed by assessments of their learning. These sequential studies will be administered orally by the proposer.