Evolutionary sequence instruction was ineffective: nearly half of students incorrectly included autapomorphies as evidence for a relationship¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? On the evolutionary sequence question, 47% of students selected the incorrect alternative including the three synapomorphies plus the two autapomorphies, while 32% chose the correct answer. → Laura R. Novick and Kefyn M. Catley 2016 q2 i? Evolutionary sequence was the one skill for which experimental instruction did not yield numerically larger improvement than business-as-usual instruction. → Laura R. Novick and Kefyn M. Catley 2016 (2)

Evidence¶

Laura R. Novick and Kefyn M. Catley 2016¶

Laura R. Novick and Kefyn M. Catley. (2016). Fostering 21st-Century Evolutionary Reasoning: Teaching Tree Thinking to Introductory Biology Students. CBE—Life Sciences Education 15:ar66. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-06-0127

q2 · i? · causal · r2

Response-frequency analysis of the five-option multiple-choice evolutionary sequence question about Sellosaurus and Vulcanodon, on both pretest and posttest. The percentages are descriptive; no inferential test or effect size is reported for this contrast.

"nearly half the students (47%) selected the incorrect alternative that included the three synapomorphies plus the two autapomorphies, approximately one-third (32%) chose the correct answer"

Laura R. Novick and Kefyn M. Catley 2016 (2)¶

Laura R. Novick and Kefyn M. Catley. (2016). Fostering 21st-Century Evolutionary Reasoning: Teaching Tree Thinking to Introductory Biology Students. CBE—Life Sciences Education 15:ar66. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-06-0127

q2 · i? · causal · r2

From the Discussion: for evolutionary sequence there were no significant effects in the ANOVA, and the authors note the question required students to go beyond what they had specifically been taught.

"The one tree-thinking skill for which our experimental instruction did not lead to numerically larger improvement than business-as-usual instruction was evolutionary sequence."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Students reify visually depicted cladogram relationships, and understanding cladograms as subsets of the complete Tree of Life may be the fundamental difficulty in acquiring tree-thinking expertise — related
• A research-based tree-thinking curriculum produced significantly larger pretest-to-posttest gains than business-as-usual instruction in introductory biology — related