ArticleCBE life sciences education2015
Relations between intuitive biological thinking and biological misconceptions in biology majors and nonmajors.
Article in CBE life sciences education, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed.
- Hermaphrodite, Gonochorist, and More: Navigating the Complexities of Sex-Related Language in Biology.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Review
- Spontaneous Anthropocentric Language Use in University Students' Explanations of Biological Concepts Varies by Topic and Predicts Misconception Agreement.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- How cultural input shapes the development of idealized biological prototypes.Journal of cognition and development : official journal of the Cognitive Development Society · 2025Article
- Building conceptual and methodological bridges between SSE's diversity, equity, and inclusion statement and educational actions in evolutionary biology.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2024Article
- Developing Student Expertise in Evolution: Cognitive Construals Complement Key Concepts in Student Representations.CBE life sciences education · 2024Article
- Self-regulatory and metacognitive instruction regarding student conceptions: influence on students' self-efficacy and cognitive load.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Common misconceptions of speciation.Evolutionary journal of the Linnean Society · 2024Review
- Students explain evolution by natural selection differently for humans versus nonhuman animals.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- Understanding Randomness on a Molecular Level: A Diagnostic Tool.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- Improving University Life Science Instruction with Analogies: Insights from a Course for Graduate Teaching Assistants.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- The Impact of Context on Students' Framing and Reasoning about Fluid Dynamics.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- Putting the Pieces Together: Student Thinking about Transformations of Energy and Matter.CBE life sciences education · 2022Article
- What College Biology Students Know about How Vaccines Work.CBE life sciences education · 2022Article
- A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in Biology: Developing Systems Thinking through Field Experiences in Restoration Ecology.CBE life sciences education · 2022Article
- Effects of Reading Interventions on Student Understanding of and Misconceptions about Antibiotic Resistance.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2022Article
- Popular media and the bombardment of evolution misconceptions.Evolution · 2022Article
- Article
- Categories convey prescriptive information across domains and development.Journal of experimental child psychology · 2021Article
- Investigating Student Perceptions of Instructor Talk: Alignment with Researchers' Categorizations and Analysis of Remembered Language.CBE life sciences education · 2021Article
- Design-Based Research: A Methodology to Extend and Enrich Biology Education Research.CBE life sciences education · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
Research and theory development in cognitive psychology and science education research remain largely isolated. Biology education researchers have documented persistent scientifically inaccurate ideas, often termed misconceptions, among biology students across biological domains. In parallel, cognitive and developmental psychologists have described intuitive conceptual systems--teleological, essentialist, and anthropocentric thinking--that humans use to reason about biology. We hypothesize that seemingly unrelated biological misconceptions may have common origins in these intuitive ways of knowing, termed cognitive construals. We presented 137 undergraduate biology majors and nonmajors with six biological misconceptions. They indicated their agreement with each statement, and explained their rationale for their response. Results indicate frequent agreement with misconceptions, and frequent use of construal-based reasoning among both biology majors and nonmajors in their written explanations. Moreover, results also show associations between specific construals and the misconceptions hypothesized to arise from those construals. Strikingly, such associations were stronger among biology majors than nonmajors. These results demonstrate important linkages between intuitive ways of thinking and misconceptions in discipline-based reasoning, and raise questions about the origins, persistence, and generality of relations between intuitive reasoning and biological misconceptions.
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