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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 6, Issue 1, Article 6 (Jun., 2005) Ke-Sheng CHAN Case studies of Physics graduates' personal theories of evolution
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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 6, Issue 1, Article 6 (Jun., 2005) Ke-Sheng CHAN Case studies of Physics graduates' personal theories of evolution
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Rationale and theoretical base
Recent research in science education has shown that, due to the prevalence and persistence of some deep-rooted common sense misconceptions about the natural phenomena (such as motion, electricity, and evolution) that people developed from their intuition and past experiences, many students emerged from their study of science without a basic understanding of some elementary but fundamentally important concepts in science (McDermott, 1984). Almost without exception, studies on students' learning in science found that some deep-rooted common sense misconceptions in science held by students before entering school frequently survive high school (Bizzo, 1994; Gunstone, 1987), university undergraduate (Bishop & Anderson, 1990; Clement, 1982; Peters, 1982) and even postgraduate (Warren, 1971; Zaïm-Idrissi, Désautels, & Larochelle, 1993) science instruction and remain virtually unchanged when they leave school. Instead of acquiring a genuine, scientific understanding of basic concepts in science, students often still retain their original intuitive common sense misconceptions after years of science study at school.
One of the most striking evidences that demonstrated the prevalence and amazing persistence of some deep-rooted common sense misconceptions about basic scientific concepts in the face of formal science instruction can be found from the well-known video program on student misconceptions in science, "A Private Universe" (Schneps, 1988), which investigated college graduates' and high school students' conceptions about the causes of the seasons and some other basic concepts in astronomy. Among other things, it was found from the interviews that, regardless of their previous science education, twenty-one of the twenty-three randomly selected students, faculties and alumni of Harvard University held naive common sense misconceptions about either the causes of the seasons or the phases of the moon. Furthermore, the intuitive misconceptions held by these presumably well-educated adult students were found to be essentially the same as those held by most high school students interviewed in the same study. The fact that the majority of Harvard graduates, faculties and high school students interviewed all shared similar intuitive common sense misconceptions about the causes of the seasons regardless of their past education implies that the problem is of a more general nature, one that affects all learners in science education, including not only students but scientists as well.
Indeed, studies in the history of science have repeatedly shown that scientists were not immune to naive common sense misconceptions about fundamental concepts in science and that they were at least as resistant to changing their ideas in science as contemporary students are (Gruber, 1974, 1981; Pinch, 1985). For example, it was found that, like many students today, both Newton (Steinberg, Brown, & Clement, 1987) and Galileo (Clagett, 1959) held the popular "motion implies force" common sense misconception about the concept of force during part of their careers. Furthermore, due to their persistent commitment to this intuitive misconception, they resisted changing their ideas as long as they can, thus preventing them from developing the scientific conception about the concept of force for many years. The deep-rooted "motion implies force" misconception was so entrenched in their minds that it took Newton about twenty years to completely abandon this idea before successfully developing the appropriate scientific conception of force (Steinberg, Brown, & Clement, 1987) whereas Galileo was never able to make similar conceptual leap all his life.
Taken as a whole, the above evidences from research in science education and the history of science indicate that scientists, like all learners in science education, are susceptible to similar deep-rooted common sense misconceptions in science, which frequently prevent them from developing the appropriate scientific concepts and are highly resistant to change. Clearly, there is no justifiable reason to assume that scientists would necessarily have a sound understanding about most basic concepts in science, even though ideally they should know better. It may well be that scientists (such as physicists) after years of study and research within their scientific discipline, still hold some deep-rooted common sense misconceptions about basic scientific concepts outside of their field of study (such as the theory of evolution in biology) without realizing it. So, it seems reasonable to suspect that physics graduates do not necessarily have the "right" kind of common sense knowledge about the theory of evolution. Though many believe they have basic scientific understanding about evolution, some might in fact hold very naive common sense misconceptions. Further investigations, such as the one reported here, are thus needed to clarify the true nature of physics graduates' common sense knowledge about evolution.
Copyright (C) 2005 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 6, Issue 1, Article 6 (Jun., 2005). All Rights Reserved.
