Conceptual change interventions in biology produce large effects on conceptual understanding compared with traditional teaching, with refutational text the most effective single intervention type¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · quant-synthesis r2 · q4
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q4 i? Meta-analysis of 33 biology intervention studies indicates conceptual change interventions result in large effects on conceptual understanding compared with traditional teaching. → Aleknavičiūtė 2023 q4 i? Refutational text was the most effective single type of intervention in the meta-analysis. → Aleknavičiūtė 2023 q3 i? The meta-analytic corpus comprised 33 studies with 3841 participants, each compared with traditional teaching that did not explicitly address misleading prior knowledge. → Aleknavičiūtė 2023 (2)

Evidence¶

Aleknavičiūtė 2023¶

Aleknavičiūtė, V., Lehtinen, E., & Södervik, I. (2023). Thirty years of conceptual change research in biology – A review and meta-analysis of intervention studies. Educational Research Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100556

q4 · i? · quant-synthesis · r?

Random-effects meta-analysis of 33 biology conceptual change intervention studies against traditional-teaching controls. The review reports that interventions show "large effects on conceptual understanding of biological topics" and that "refutational text being the most effective single type of intervention". No pooled Hedges' g value is printed in the supplied text.

"the results of the meta-analysis indicate that conceptual change interventions result in large effects on conceptual understanding of biological topics when compared with traditional teaching, with refutational text being the most effective single type of intervention"

Aleknavičiūtė 2023 (2)¶

Aleknavičiūtė, V., Lehtinen, E., & Södervik, I. (2023). Thirty years of conceptual change research in biology – A review and meta-analysis of intervention studies. Educational Research Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100556

q4 · i? · quant-synthesis · r2

Corpus definition from the Methods section: of 96 qualitatively reviewed articles, 45 lacked control groups, two compared two interventions, and 16 lacked statistics, leaving "33 studies with 3841 participants" for effect-size calculation using Hedges' g under a random-effects model.

"Altogether, 33 studies with 3841 participants were included in the meta-analysis."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The most effective biology conceptual change interventions dealt with more simplified phenomena such as the cardiovascular system — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Evolution is the most investigated topic and text-reading the most common intervention type in biology conceptual change research — related
• Instruction that confronts science misconceptions (conceptual-conflict interventions, refutation text) produces conceptual change more often than standard exposition — a broader claim this one bears on
• Effect sizes of biology conceptual change interventions were strongly influenced by sample size and publication bias — related
• Personalized refutation text significantly predicts stronger conceptual change among teachers who held both math-gender misconceptions at pre-test — a narrower finding that bears on this claim