Kummer Tyler A, Whipple Clinton J, Jensen Jamie L
Department of Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2016 Dec 2;17(3):389-398. doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v17i3.1156. eCollection 2016 Dec.
Darwin described evolution as "descent with modification." Descent, however, is not an explicit focus of most evolution instruction and often leaves deeply held misconceptions to dominate student understanding of common ancestry and species relatedness. Evolutionary trees are ways of visually depicting descent by illustrating the relationships between species and groups of species. The ability to properly interpret and use evolutionary trees has become known as "tree thinking." We used a 20-question assessment to measure misconceptions in tree thinking and compare the proportion of students who hold these misconceptions in an introductory biology course with students in two higher-level courses including a senior level biology course. We found that misconceptions related to reading the graphic ( and ) were variably influenced across time with decreasing and increasing in prevalence. On the other hand, misconceptions related to the fundamental underpinnings of evolutionary theory ( and ) proved resistant to change during a typical undergraduate study of biology. A possible new misconception relating to the length of the branches in an evolutionary tree is described. Understanding the prevalence and persistence of misconceptions informs educators as to which misconceptions should be targeted in their courses.
达尔文将进化描述为“带有变异的传代”。然而，传代并非大多数进化教学的明确重点，而且常常让根深蒂固的误解主导学生对共同祖先和物种亲缘关系的理解。进化树是通过说明物种与物种群体之间的关系来直观描绘传代的方式。正确解读和使用进化树的能力已被称为“树状思维”。我们使用一项包含20个问题的评估来衡量树状思维中的误解，并将在一门生物学入门课程中持有这些误解的学生比例与两门高级课程（包括一门高年级生物学课程）中的学生进行比较。我们发现，与解读图表（和）相关的误解随时间受到不同程度的影响，其流行程度有所下降和上升。另一方面，与进化理论的基本基础（和）相关的误解在典型的本科生物学学习过程中被证明难以改变。文中描述了一种与进化树分支长度有关的可能的新误解。了解误解的流行程度和持续性能让教育工作者知道在他们的课程中应该针对哪些误解。
