Explanations, conceptions and obstacles about the origin of species in High School students in Argentina

Abstract: Although there exists a great deal of research that analyzes the way in which the students explain adaptive evolution, few studies address how they explain the origin of new species. In this work, we characterize, based on a qualitative interpretative methodology, the way in which students in a secondary school in Argentina explain the origin of new species. For this purpose we use an open questionnaire in which we ask the students to explain the origin and extinction of certain species. From the answers we identified two explanatory patterns based on the notion of adaptation and a third on the hybridization. We interpret these responses in terms of a representational hierarchy ranging from the ideas most specifically linked to the cases discussed to the epistemological obstacles that constitute the most general modes of thought underlying.摘要：尽管已有大量研究围绕学生阐释适应性演化（adaptive evolution）的方式展开分析，但鲜有研究探讨学生如何解释新物种的起源。本研究基于质性诠释方法论，对阿根廷某中学学生阐释新物种起源的路径进行了系统刻画。为此，我们采用开放式问卷，要求学生对特定物种的起源与灭绝过程作出解释。从回收的作答中，我们识别出两种以适应概念为基础的解释模式，以及第三种基于杂交（hybridization）的解释模式。我们结合表征层级框架对这些作答进行解读，该框架涵盖从与所讨论案例紧密相关的具体观念，到构成底层一般性思维模式的认识论障碍（epistemological obstacles）。