Teachers’ choice of content and consideration of controversial and sensitive issues in teaching of secondary school genetics (original) (raw)
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The skills required to understand genetic phenomena and transfer knowledge to real world situations are an important part of 21st century scientific literacy. While socio-scientific issues (SSI) are increasingly emphasised in science curricula, teachers have low interest in adopting SSI in teaching. Little is known about how teachers choose content for their teaching, although this process translates curricula to teaching practice. We explored how teachers choose content and contexts for biology courses on cells, heredity, and biotechnology by interviewing ten Finnish upper-secondary school teachers. We studied how the teachers described teaching on genetically modified organisms, hereditary disorders, and human traits. Teachers' perceptions on genetics teaching were classified to Developmental, Structural and Hereditary approaches. The approaches were connected not only to the teachers' perceptions of the more important content, but also teacher inclinations towards teachin...
Genetics Literacy: Insights From Science Teachers’ Knowledge, Attitude, and Teaching Perceptions
International Journal of Science And Mathematics Education
Teachers have a crucial role to play in raising future generations of citizens who are aware of issues in genetics literacy such as gene therapy, cloning, and stem cell research. Teachers’ teaching practices are influenced by their knowledge in genetics literacy and their attitudes towards different issues. Accordingly, this study explored the relationships among middle school science teachers’ background characteristics (gender, teaching experience, self-perceived interest in and self-perceived knowledge of genetics), their genetics literacy levels, their attitudes towards various issues in genetics literacy, and their perceptions of teaching issues in genetics literacy. Data were collected from 435 Turkish middle school science teachers by completing the Genetics Literacy Assessment Inventory, the scale for attitudes towards issues in genetics literacy and perceptions of teaching issues in genetics literacy. The results of canonical correlation analysis suggested that being female, having a high level of interest in genetics, and perceiving oneself as knowledgeable in genetics were associated with higher levels of knowledge in genetics literacy and holding favorable general attitudes. These teachers believed in the necessity of introducing genetics literacy and held higher self-efficacy teaching beliefs regarding the teaching of issues in genetics literacy in their classes. However, they tended to emphasize more impeding factors as well as hold unfavorable attitudes towards gene therapy and gene therapy applications, implying that their attitudes were context dependent.
2020
Understanding how teaching affects students' attitudes and beliefs is notoriously difficult, specifically in a quickly evolving and societally relevant field such as genetics. The aim of this survey study is to capitalize our previous research and examine how teaching relates to Finnish secondary school students' liking of, self-concept in and experienced utility of genetics, attitude towards gene technology and belief in genetic determinism. In this unique setting, we used as explanatory variables their teachers' teaching emphases and learning materials, and as student-related factors, we used gender and the number of biology courses attended. Item-response theory with exploratory, confirmatory, and explanatory analyses were carried out to model the data. Teaching explained students' attitudes and beliefs: if the teacher's emphasis was Hereditary or the textbook with stronger Mendelian emphasis was used, students tended to havemore negative attitudes towards learning genetics and stronger belief in genetic determinism. Our results also suggest gender differences: male students had more positive attitude towards gene technology, higher self-concept, whereas as utility of genetics and belief in genetic determinism were higher in females. The results suggest that teaching' approaches as well as learning materials need updates to fulfil the needs for genetics literacy.
What do Students Really Understand? Secondary Education Students' Conceptions of Genetics
Science Insights Education Frontiers, 2021
Individuals with a secondary education should have a knowledge level sufficient to make sense of what they read or hear about genetics, and they should be able to think scientifically in evaluation and decision-making processes. The purpose of this study is to identify the basic understanding of secondary education students about genetic concepts and the reasons for the difficulty of learning and teaching genetics. Semi-structured interviews that include student drawings have been conducted with 24 students to gain a comprehensive perspective on secondary education students' understanding of the basic concepts of genetics. The answers given by the students to the interview questions and their drawings have been analyzed with content analysis. Qualitative data analyzed with a holistic point of view were collected and evaluated under the categories of 'DNA, gene and chromosome' and 'Cell divisions and heredity relationship.' As a general result, it has been found that students have inaccurate and inconsistent information about the basic concepts of genetics, have difficulties in establishing relationships between these concepts, and cannot fully understand and explain the processes underlying genetic events. It has been observed that various factors have an effect on this result. It will be possible to support students to develop a more accurate understanding of genetic concepts and issues by working on the weaknesses in genetics teaching, providing an enriched teaching environment with current teaching methods and materials, and moving away from rote learning.
Factors explaining students’ attitudes towards learning genetics and belief in genetic determinism
International Journal of Science Education, 2021
Understanding how teaching affects students' attitudes and beliefs is notoriously difficult, specifically in a quickly evolving and societally relevant field such as genetics. The aim of this survey study is to capitalize our previous research and examine how teaching relates to Finnish secondary school students' liking of, self-concept in and experienced utility of genetics, attitude towards gene technology and belief in genetic determinism. In this unique setting, we used as explanatory variables their teachers' teaching emphases and learning materials, and as student-related factors, we used gender and the number of biology courses attended. Item-response theory with exploratory, confirmatory, and explanatory analyses were carried out to model the data. Teaching explained students' attitudes and beliefs: if the teacher's emphasis was Hereditary or the textbook with stronger Mendelian emphasis was used, students tended to havemore negative attitudes towards learning genetics and stronger belief in genetic determinism. Our results also suggest gender differences: male students had more positive attitude towards gene technology, higher self-concept, whereas as utility of genetics and belief in genetic determinism were higher in females. The results suggest that teaching' approaches as well as learning materials need updates to fulfil the needs for genetics literacy.
Th e purpose of this study was to describe processes and methods suggested by science teachers for changing alternative conceptions about genetics. Th e study focused on a group of 17 (8 male and 9 female) science teachers who were graduate level students or completed a graduate program. Hence, the group was the case of this study. Qualitative data of the study was collected by detailed lesson plans prepared by the participants for overcoming two alternative conceptions about genetics (chromosome is an organelle and DNA is found as a whole set in the body) and follow-up interviews. Th e data was analyzed by descriptive analysis. Th e fi ndings showed that the case group of this study represented fragmented processes to overcome the alternative conceptions. At the same time, they did not provide methods or processes in line with conceptual change models. Th ese fi ndings mean that science and technology teachers who have completed a graduate program or are currently graduate students of science education are not able to plan coherent teaching on alternative conceptions or are not aware of conceptual change processes and methods.
The importance of genetically literate individuals who can understand and join debates about genetics related issues, including gene therapy or cloning has been acknowledged by societies. With this respect, raising genetically literate individuals has become more prominent. Teachers’ knowledge in genetics literacy and their attitudes towards issues in genetics literacy influence their teaching practices. As a wide range of variables effect teachers’ genetics literacy levels and attitudes, this study examined how a set of variables including pre-service science teachers’ self-perceived interest, knowledge and importance of genetics, gender, academic achievement, socioeconomic status (household income, employment status and educational level of parents) are related to the their genetics literacy levels and attitudes towards various genetics literacy issues. Data was collected from 355 pre-service science teachers through administration of Genetics Literacy Assessment Inventory and Attitudes towards Issues in Genetics Literacy Scale. Canonical correlation analysis suggested that self-perceived interest and importance in genetics literacy issues, gender and parents’ educational levels were positively associated with participants’ genetics literacy levels, as well as attitudes towards the use of genetic information, gene therapy, and gene therapy applications. On the other hand, self-perceived knowledge, GPA, household income, employment status of parents were not found to be associated.
Interdisciplinary Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 2020
Having an adequate understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS) is an integral part of scientific literacy. However, NOS is usually not yet explicitly embedded in the science curricula at German universities. To fill this gap, we have introduced NOS elements in the undergraduate course on genetics at the biology department of an Institute of Technology in Northwestern Germany in summer semester 2018. The strategy used an exclusive-reflective approach by emphasising socio-scientific issues. As Kostas Kampourakis (2016) suggests, our design considers not only general aspects of the NOS concept, but also the family resemblance approach presented by Erduran and Dagher (2014). To evaluate changes in students' NOS understanding, we did a pre-and post-survey about their NOS understanding following the SUSSI questionnaire designed by Liang et al. (2008). The NOS understanding of the 93 participants shows statistically significant improvement in 14 out of 24 items (58,3%) after the teaching unit, compared to the pre-survey. While the pre-survey shows a larger gap of understanding regarding the relations of environment, theory, and law, the post-test results show significant effects on learning, in particular regarding subjective, social, and cultural influences on science. However, the students' understanding regarding the relations of environment, theory, and law still remains weak. The findings indicate that some preconceptions were not as amenable to change as others. In particular, the assumed facticity of scientific knowledge seems to be a powerful preconception that is much more firmly fixed than the contextualization of scientific discovery.
Prospective Biology Teachers' Understanding of Genetics Concepts
2001
The purpose of this study is to examine one possible source of misconceptions that are held by students of genetics-the teachers. Is there evidence to suggest that prospective biology teachers might have misconceptions about genetics and related concepts? If prospective biology teachers have misconceptions in genetics, how do these misconceptions relate to common students' misconceptions in genetics? To address these questions a study was conducted at Pennsylvania State University in a secondary science methods course. Data were collected from six prospective biology teachers who had experience with concept mapping prior to this study. The teachers were given a list of concepts and were asked to construct a concept map using those concepts. Maps were analyzed and compared. A major finding is that concept maps clearly demonstrate that prospective teachers do not have conceptual understanding of concepts and that they are suffering lack of organizational and hierarchial knowledge among these concepts. There is a need for research on teachers' alternative conceptions. Appended are a "Workshop on Concept Mapping with an Introduction to Technology Tools" and a comprehensive concept map. (Contains 26 references.) (MM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the ori inal document. 2 BEST COPY AVM BLE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) O This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. O Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy.