An exploration of young children's understandings of genetics concepts from ontological and epistemological perspectives

LEARNING

Gregory J. Kelly and Richard E. Mayer, Section Coeditors

An Exploration of YoungChildren’s Understandings ofGenetics Concepts fromOntological and EpistemologicalPerspectives

GRADY VENVILLEEdith Cowan University—Education, 100 Joondalup Drive, Perth,Western Australia 6027, Australia

SUSAN J. GRIBBLECurtin University, Engineering, Science, and Computing, GPO Box U1987, Perth,Western Australia 6845, Australia

JENNIFER DONOVANEdith Cowan University—Education, 100 Joondalup Drive, Perth,Western Australia 6027, Australia

Received 20 May 2004; revised 6 September 2004; accepted 13 October 2004

DOI 10.1002/sce.20061Published online 27 May 2005 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

ABSTRACT: This research examined 9- to 15-year-old children’s understandings aboutbasic genetics concepts and how they integrated those understandings with their broadertheories of biology. A cross-sectional case study method was used to explore the stu-dents’ (n = 90) understandings of basic inheritance and molecular genetics concepts suchas gene and DNA. Data were collected by interview and were analyzed quantitatively andqualitatively. A theoretical framework consisting of an ontological perspective and an epis-temological perspective informed the data analysis. The results indicate that the majorityof students had a theory of kinship because they could differentiate between socially and

Correspondence to: Grady Venville; e-mail: [email protected]

C© 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

YOUNG CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDINGS OF GENETICS CONCEPTS 615

genetically inherited characteristics. While these students had heard of the concepts geneand DNA, a bona fide theory of genetics was elusive because they did not know wheregenes are or what they do. The discussion explores popular cultural origins of students’understandings and potential ontological and epistemological barriers to further learningabout genetics. C© 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 89:614–633, 2005

INTRODUCTION

In our modern, biotechnological world an understanding of the basic concepts of genet-ics is critical for effective scientific literacy for future citizens. In a guest editorial of theAmerican Biology Teacher, Jegalian (2000) concluded that, “all of us will have a responsi-bility to ensure that the advances from genome science are used to benefit as many peopleas possible and to hurt no one” (p. 627). The rapid expansion of knowledge of moleculargenetics and the burgeoning biotechnological industry is requiring the populace to becomeinvolved in science in a decision-making capacity. Decisions of the local and immediatenature already face us daily. The more global decisions and difficult choices revolve aroundfar bigger, economic and ethical issues, such as genetic discrimination, genetic privacy(Rifkin, 1998), and whether the future of the human species should be altered with suchnew technologies (The Economist, 2001).

Trumbo (2000) points out that progress in genetics is inevitable, but the benefits of thisprogress, as with previous technological advances, will accrue with the educated. Trumboexplains that the ability of humans to create novel environments, such as the life-savingdiets given to people with the genetic disorder PKU (phenylketonuria), means that we canlook to genetics as an important contributor to the well being of an organism, not as fate.Education is the key to taking advantage of such technologies and understanding the effectsof the complex relationship between genetics and the environment on the developmentof an organism. Trumbo criticizes current biology curricula in the way that genetic andenvironmental effects are divorced from one another and not presented as cooperatingfactors that shape characteristics. Science education is faced with the challenge of keepingabreast with the cutting-edge aspects of biotechnology without creating a curriculum thatis unbalanced. Teachers and researchers have an obligation to provide opportunities forall students to construct the best possible foundational knowledge of genetics as a basisfor ongoing learning about emerging genetic technologies (Trumbo, 2000) as well as thelimitations and realities of the impact of those technologies.

Due possibly to the abstract nature of this field of biology, genetics is rarely included informal curricula until students are at least in high school. And yet students draw notionsof heredity and DNA from movies, comic books, television dramas and sitcoms, sciencefiction, and other aspects of what Nelkin and Lindee (2004) termed “low culture” sources(p. xxv). Nelkin and Lindee explain that the gene is now not only a scientific concept,but a cultural icon and powerful social symbol. They claim that within popular culture,the gene appears to explain a plethora of human characteristics from obesity to preferredstyles of dressing. DNA functions as something that is independent of the body, immortal,fundamental to identity and with the ability to explain individual difference, moral order,and human fate. “These popular images convey a striking picture of the gene as powerful,deterministic and central to an understanding of both everyday behavior and the ‘secret oflife”’ (Nelkin & Lindee, 2004, p. 2).

An example of the kind of “low culture” sources of information to which Nelkin andLeindee (2004) refer is the popular, fictitious television program CSI (Crime Scene Investi-gation). A recent episode of CSI Miami, focused on a 20-year-old, illegal Cuban immigrantwho committed an atrocious crime of torture and murder. The final scenes revealed that

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DNA testing had proved that the immigrant’s father, whom the young man had never metor known, also was a torturer and murderer. The conclusion from the investigation teamfocused on the phrase “like father like son.” The implication was that regardless of thesocial environment the young man had experienced, he had inherited a particular form ofcriminality from his father and that was his destiny. Another example of the kind of “lowculture” sources of information about genetics to which Nelkin and Lindee refer is the pop-ular cartoon movie Digimon (a trademark name of Toei Animations and short for “digitalmonsters”). Digimon characters also appear in comic books and electronic games such asplay station and gameboy. In the movies and games, these characters have DNA and arecapable of “DNA digevolving” a process that can elevate Digimon to higher, more powerful,fighting levels. Very little is known about the impact of such cultural images on children’sunderstanding of these concepts within a scientific context, or how children connect theconcepts with their understandings of life in general.

A search of the literature related to children’s understandings of inheritance and geneticsreveals a dichotomy. At one end of the dichotomy, we have research about understand-ings and learning in genetics that has largely focused on students of 14 years of age andolder (Banet & Ayuso, 2000; Lewis & Kattmann, 2004; Tsui & Treagust, 2003; Venville& Treagust, 1998). At the other end, there is a body of research with young children in theearly years of primary school that has reported understandings of inheritance and kinship,the visible and concrete implications of genetics (Solomon et al., 1996; Springer, 1999).There is a considerable gap in the research between the extremes of the dichotomy thatmeans we know very little about children in the upper primary and lower secondary yearsand their understandings of genetics. We know very little about the impact of the more re-cent notoriety of genetics and its more frequent inclusion in everyday culture on children’sunderstandings. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to investigate 9- to 15-year-oldstudents’ emerging understandings of genetics by examining whether they can differentiatebetween biological and cultural inheritance and by examining their ideas, if any, about theconcepts of gene and DNA. The purpose of this study was also to investigate how emergingunderstandings of genetics integrate with children’s more holistic theories of biology ortheir understandings of what is living and what is nonliving. More specifically the researchquestions were

1. Can students differentiate between biological inheritance and cultural or socialtransmission?

2. What are students’ unreflective and practical understandings of the causal mecha-nisms of inheritance?

3. What do students’ understand about the concepts of gene and/or DNA?4. What is the relationship between students’ understandings of inheritance and their

understanding of living things?

The theoretical framework constructed for this research consisted of two perspectives.The first perspective of the theoretical framework is ontological because it is concernedwith the basic nature of the world, in particular, how children perceive the basic nature ofgenetics concepts. The second perspective is epistemological because it is concerned withthe nature of knowledge, in particular, biological and genetics knowledge, and how it isstructured and interconnected. The two perspectives are not mutually exclusive, rather theyare interconnected and interdependent. It is hoped that, in concert, the perspectives willprovide a more comprehensive picture of the conceptual and structural aspects of students’understandings. The next two sections expand on each of these perspectives exploring therelated literature and creating an image of the lenses through which the data were viewed.


An Ontological Perspective

While the term “biology” originated in the 19th century (Wandersee, Fisher, & Moody,2000), the term “gene” was not introduced until 1909 by Johannsen to make a distinctionbetween a characteristic and the associated genetic factor (Dunne, 1965). Since that time,the concept of the gene has been continuously evolving from abstract entities like “beadson a string” to genes as chemical entities involved in complicated chemistry (Tudge, 2000).Research suggests that this evolving conception of the gene is also evident in student learn-ing of genetics (Venville & Treagust, 1998). However, few students develop a conceptionof a gene that is consistent with or useful in today’s genetic-information age (Kindfield,1994; Lewis & Kattman, 2004; Venville & Treagust, 1998; Wood-Robinson, 1994). Moststudents complete introductory genetics courses with a view of a gene as being like an activeparticle that can influence characteristics in an unknown way (Venville & Treagust, 1998),or similarly, small trait-bearing particles (Lewis & Kattman, 2004). Some students have alsobeen found not to differentiate between a gene and a characteristic (Venville & Treagust,1998; Lewis & Kattman, 2004). This is how geneticists viewed genes more than 50 yearsago, before the discovery of the structure of DNA. Even when students learnt about thestructure of DNA and protein synthesis, they often failed to put all the information togetherto create a cohesive picture (Venville & Treagust, 2002).

The study reported in this paper focused on children from as young as 9 years of agebecause it was anticipated that young children would have exposure to some concepts ofgenetics before a formal genetics curriculum was introduced. Several researchers have in-vestigated notions of inheritance and kinship in very young children that provides importantbaseline information with regard to this study. One of these studies, conducted by Solomonet al. (1996), found that only after 6 years of age do children start to differentiate biologicalinheritance from cultural transmission and environmental influences on characteristics. Tohave a biological understanding of inheritance, children must understand that the processesthat result in offspring resembling their parents are different from learning or other envi-ronmental processes, but they do not need to understand the details of genetics mechanisms(Solomon et al., 1996).

Springer (1999) investigated what it is that takes children beyond a social understandingof families, such as nurturance and proximity, toward the notion that family relations canbe defined in terms of unobservable, biological ties. A social conception of family is basedon social or perceptual and readily observable factors such as the same surname, physicalresemblance, personal property, family members living and doing things together, nurturingeach other, and having social connections. A biological conception of family or kinship isbased on factors that are not readily observable, a genetic relatedness caused by genes,chromosomes, and DNA. Springer found that a “theory of kinship” (p. 47) emerges whenchildren learn that babies grow inside their mothers. Springer further explained that this firsttheory of kinship is biological, because children could differentiate culturally inherited orlearned features from genetically inherited features, but not genetic, because they could notexplain causal mechanisms. This leads to questions about the emergence of understandingsof bona fide genetics concepts within a theory of biology, or their understanding of livingthings.

The research programs reported by Piaget (1979), Carey (1985), and Keil (1992) providedrich information about young children’s emerging understandings of living things thatare generally referred to as a child’s “theory of biology” (Carey, 1985). Pauen (1999)explains that Piaget’s work suggests that children make an animate/inanimate distinction toidentify living things, Carey’s (1985) findings indicate a people/other distinction, and Keilhypothesized that very young children are aware that people, animals, and plants belong to

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the same ontological category of living things. More recently, Slaughter, Jaakkola, and Carey(1999) concluded that the cluster of concepts of life, death, and body function constitutesthe basic structure of the first, vitalistic, intuitive biological theory. There is no explicitexamination in the literature of students’ use of genetics concepts such as gene or DNA asa criterion for living things and consequently, epistemological questions arise about howand when children’s understandings of genetics concepts integrate with their theories ofbiology.

An Epistemological Perspective

Epistemology concerns the nature of knowledge and the process of knowledge making.In the biological sciences, the metaphor of the “web of life” that highlights the importance ofinterdependence and interconnectedness is particularly appropriate, not only for the natureof the biological world, but also for the nature of biological knowledge. Wandersee andFisher (2000) proclaim that the days when teaching and understanding biology involvedthe memorization of trivial factoids and tidbits of unconnected information are gone. Theyclaim that knowing biology is about understanding biological principles and theories and thatthis is the key to academic rigor and biological literacy. Wandersee and Fisher explain thatteaching practices that focus on details, such as definitions, taxa names, and structure minutiacan obscure the “big picture” of knowing biology. This phenomenon has been observed anddocumented in genetics and other areas of biology. For example, students often learn theminute details of the genetic code, transcription, and translation and yet do not understand itis proteins that have an effect on phenotype through various biochemical pathways (Venville& Treagust, 1998, 2002). White (1994) claims that “without connectedness, science is nota system capable of further advance, but a collection of eclectic trivia” (p. 261). The samecould be said for children’s ideas about science, that without connectedness, there is littlehope for advancement in their understanding. This argument is supported by the findingsof Carr et al. (1994) who concluded that better explanations from children include greaterlevels of connectedness.

Research about the connectedness of knowledge are based on Ausubel’s (1963, 1968)differentiation between “meaningful learning” and “rote learning” and later developed byNovak into a theory of human constructivism (Novak, 1993). Meaningful learning is char-acterized by the development of strongly hierarchical frameworks of concepts, whereasrote learning is characterized by the random memorization of isolated pieces of information(Mintzes & Wandersee, 1998). For meaningful learning to occur, the material being learnedmust make sense to the learner in terms of their existing knowledge and they must vol-untarily choose to incorporate the new knowledge in a nonarbitrary, nonverbatim manner(Mintzes & Wandersee, 1998).

Wandersee, Fisher, and Moody (2000) use an extended metaphor with mapping to de-scribe an ideal process of knowing biology. They explain that for such a complex body ofknowledge that “creating scientifically valid maps of the cognitive territory can enhanceprogress in biology learning and in biological research” (p. 30). This process of mappingrequires learners to integrate their new biological knowledge with existing knowledge, ithelps them to organize their knowledge into coherent patterns, and facilitates the refine-ment of their knowledge structures (Wandersee & Fisher, 2000). In order for teachers andeducators to effectively enable this mapping process, they must have information aboutthe students’ understanding of concepts and how they connect with their understanding ofthe principles and theories of biology. This epistemological perspective of the theoreticalframework focuses on the structure of the students’ knowledge, whether it is connected andintegrated or disconnected and piecemeal.


DESIGN AND METHODS

Qualitative data collection methods were used for this study in order to probe deeply andanalyze intensively students’ understandings of foundational concepts of inheritance andgenetics. The four research questions were addressed through a cross-sectional, develop-mental approach (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2000). The aim was to capture a snapshotof a spectrum of children from the age of 9–15 years and their understandings of funda-mental concepts of inheritance and genetics and how these concepts integrated with theirunderstanding of living things.

Sample

The sample consisted of 90 students, approximately 15 students from each of years 5,6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 and included 39 females and 51 males. Each group of students wasrandomly selected from four different, government-funded schools so that students with abroad range of interests and school attainment levels were interviewed. The schools weretwo primary schools and two secondary schools. Each primary school is a “feeder” schoolto the secondary schools. One of these pairs of schools is located in a suburban, working tolower middle class neighborhood with a relatively homogenous population of Australian-born students of European heritage. The other pair of schools is located in a more culturallyand economically diverse, working to upper middle class area closer to the central businessdistrict of Perth, Western Australia. The majority of students attending this pair of schoolsalso are Australian born. About a third of students have non-European heritage with parentsor grandparents originating from southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, the Middle East or ofAboriginal Australian decent. In both pairs of schools, the younger, primary-aged group(n = 48, ages 9–12) had generalist primary school teachers and the older, secondary group(n = 42, ages 12–15) learned science with specialist science teachers.

The science learning area of the outcomes-based Curriculum Framework of WesternAustralia (Curriculum Council, 1998) explicitly states that

Students can describe how organisms grow and reproduce, and understand how they changeover generations . . . They differentiate between learned and inherited characteristics and usescientific models and theories to give reasons for these things. (p. 228)

In Australia, primary school teachers teach science on average about 1 h per week, howeverthere is wide variation between teachers and between schools (Goodrum, Hackling, &Rennie, 2001). Secondary school students are in science class between 200 and 250 minper week (Goodrum, Hackling, & Rennie, 2001). Secondary students in Western Australiausually do one, 10-week unit based on biological science per year, including an introductoryunit on plants and animals in Year 8 and a unit on reproduction and genetics in Year 10.Sixteen students from the older group had studied an introductory reproduction and geneticscourse for 10 weeks in Year 10. This course typically focuses on sexual reproduction,the segregation of chromosome pairs during meiosis, fertilization, Mendelian patterns ofinheritance, algorithmic problem solving of monohybrid crosses, interpretation of pedigrees,and the structure of DNA. As far as it was possible to ascertain from the current teachersand the students themselves, none of the other students had studied inheritance or geneticsin a formal way, but some had considered genetic engineering and other genetics-relatedissues, such as cloning and GM foods, but these topics were considered as social issuesrather than science concepts.

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The Interview

The students’ understandings of inheritance and genetics were determined through one-on-one interviews taking the format of interviews about concepts (Carr, 1996). This inter-view approach has been shown to be successful with 15- to 17-year-old students (Venville& Treagust, 1998); however, modifications were made to the interview technique so thatyounger students’ ideas about inheritance could be appropriately investigated (Seigal &Peterson, 1999; Solomon et al., 1996). All interviews were audio tape-recorded and sum-mary sheets were used by the interviewer as a second method of data collection. Theinterview protocol consisted of four parts that corresponded with research questions 1–4.

The aim of the first part of the interview was to determine whether the interviewee coulddifferentiate between genetically inherited traits and socially and culturally acquired traits.The interviewer told the interviewee a story about a baby girl who was born in Fiji. The girl’sparents died when she was 6 months old and she was then adopted by Australian parents. Theinterviewee was shown pictures of the Fijian parents (indigenous) and Australian parents(European descent) and asked questions such as whether the girl would look like her Fijianor Australian parents and whether she would prefer Fijian or Australian food. A secondscenario of a female dog adopting baby tiger cubs also was discussed with the primaryschool students.

The aim of the second part of the interview was to determine the interviewee’s understand-ing of how and why offspring resemble their parents. That is, to probe for an understandingof genetics through which the interviewee could differentiate between the visible char-acteristics (phenotype) associated with inheritance and the microscopic (abstract) causalmechanisms such as genes, DNA, or chromosomes (genotype) associated with genetics.The interviewees were shown various photographs of dogs and puppies and asked ques-tions such as whether they thought any of the dogs were the puppies’ parents, why puppieslook similar to their parents, and/or what they think causes the similarities between parentsand offspring.

The aim of the third part of the interview was to determine the interviewee’s conceptionof the means of genetic inheritance. If the student had either mentioned or heard of genes,DNA, or chromosomes when the interviewer asked then they were asked questions such aswhere do you think genes are in the body? What do you think genes look like? and How doyou think genes work?

The aim of the fourth part of the interview was to determine whether the intervieweeincorporated their understanding of genetics/inheritance into a theory of biology. The studentwas shown a variety of pictures of living and nonliving things including a bird, cat, fly,dinosaur, tree, plant, car, fire, sun, and a cartoon Digimon character and asked whethereach of these things had DNA or genes (depending on which terminology the student wasmost comfortable with). The interview protocol was designed such that the interview wasterminated when a student could not answer any more questions. For example, if a studenthad never heard of genes, DNA, or chromosomes the interview was terminated at the endof part 2 because the student would not be able to answer further questions about the natureof genes and DNA.

Data Analysis

The data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative analysis in-volved the use of the taped interviews and interview summary sheets to create a database ofeach student’s responses to each of the interview questions. These responses were coded andscored with 2 points given for the most scientifically accurate answers, 1 point for partially


correct answers, and 0 for incorrect answers. Each student was given a subscore for eachof the four parts of the interview and a total score for the whole interview. All scores wereconverted to a score out of 10.

The qualitative analysis of the data involved three researchers independently isolatingthemes related to each of the research questions that emerged from the interview data. Theindependent analysis was followed by a process of discussion and negotiation where thethemes were collectively affirmed and disconfirmed by the researchers. The themes werealso reconciled with the database to determine whether evidence from the quantitative anal-ysis supported these themes. The interview tapes were then used to search for excerpts fromthe interviews that exemplified the themes. Excerpts were generally selected as examples oftypical responses from students. However, atypical excerpts were included, and identifiedas such in the findings, to give an indication of the breadth of responses. Care was also takento include excerpts from some children, Bradley, Kevin, and Vesna,1 from several of thesections of the interview to give the reader a notion of the holistic concepts about heredityand genetics that a particular child might have. The results presented in the next sectioncorrelate with the research questions and demonstrate and discuss the themes that emergedfrom each of the related sections of the interview.

This research drew on Guba and Lincoln’s (1989) notion of trustworthiness to ensureoverall quality rather than the traditional standards of rigor in positivistic styles of research(Lincoln & Guba, 2000). Traditional terms of internal and external validity, reliability,and objectivity are replaced by notions of credibility, transferability, dependability, andconfirmability (Janesick, 2000). The credibility of the research findings in this study wasenhanced by the use of triangulation of sources of data at the school level (four schools),and a large as practical number of students in each year level (n = 15) for the qualitativeinterview method. Data were analyzed in qualitative and quantitative ways and three re-searchers were involved in the search for themes in the data set. Furthermore, triangulationof theoretical perspectives, that is the use of the ontological and epistemological perspec-tives, enhances credibility (Patton, 1990). Dependability and confirmability are establishedthrough the presentation of a detailed methodology and excerpts of student understandingfrom transcripts that reflect a thick description (Geertz, 1973; Guba & Lincoln, 1989). Thisallows the reader to proceed through their own tracking and interpretation process, comingto their own conclusions, or for the replication of the research in other contexts. The trans-ferability (Guba & Lincoln, 1989) is also established through the provision of as completea database as possible in order to facilitate transferability judgments by others who maywish to apply the findings of the study to their own situation.

FINDINGS

Differentiating Cultural/Social and Genetic Inheritance

The majority of students, both primary and secondary, were able to differentiate theculturally and socially inherited factors such as language, food, and clothing preferencesfrom genetically inherited factors such as skin color and hair type. This is consistent withother studies (Solomon et al., 1996; Springer, 1999) that found that most children are ableto make this distinction by 7 years of age. Both primary and secondary students scoredwell on this part of the interview with 25 of the 42 secondary students and 22 of the 48primary students scoring 9 or more out of 10. The following interview excerpt shows howan 11-year-old student was able to explain that a young child adopted from indigenousFijian parents to European Australian parents would have the looks of her Fijian parents.

1 Pseudonyms are used throughout this paper.

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Kevin (Year 6, 11 years old)Interviewer: Do you think that she will speak Fijian language, or do you think she will

speak Australian English language?Kevin: Australian.Interviewer: Why do you think that?Kevin: Because she is only, you said 6 months or so before she went to Australia, and

she will be in Australia for the rest of her life and she will be around peoplewho speak Australian language and so she will learn to do that as well.

Interviewer: Do you think she would like Australian food or Fijian food?Kevin: Probably Fiji food because that’s where she was born and she will like that

better.Interviewer: What about clothes, do you think she would wear these Fijian style clothes or

Australian style clothes?Kevin: Australian clothes, because in Australia we don’t wear clothes like that.Interviewer: Do you think she’d look like her Australian parents or like her Fijian parents?Kevin: Fijian parents, I reckon.Interviewer: Why do you think that?Kevin: Because she’s got the same DNA blood as these parents and so she would look

like them.

Although Kevin understood that clothing and language are culturally inherited, and thatthe child’s looks are genetically inherited and would not change with the change in environ-ment, he indicated that the child would prefer Fijian food when she was grown up. Kevin didnot elaborate on his reasons for thinking this during the interview, but some intervieweesfelt that the adopted child might be interested in her original heritage and would like totry Fijian food, Fijian clothing and may like to learn the language, but would mostly eatAustralian food, wear Australian clothes, and speak Australian English.

The difficulties that younger students had with this part of the interview tended to be inthe context of the tiger cubs that were adopted by the female dog. Several younger childrenindicated that the baby tigers would grow up and learn to bark like a dog and/or behavelike a dog rather than like a tiger. The following excerpt from Vesna’s interview shows thatalthough she understood the tigers would grow up to look like tigers she felt that the babytigers would grow up to bark like a dog, and behave like dogs. Older students tended not tothink that the tiger cubs would grow up to bark.

Vesna (Year 5, 10 years old)Interviewer: So do you think they will grow up to look like a dog or look like a tiger?Vesna: Look like a tiger.Interviewer: Why do you think that?Vesna: Because they weren’t born from the dog, they were born from tiger parents.Interviewer: Okay, do you think they will grow up to bark like a dog or growl like a tiger?Vesna: Mm, maybe bark like a dog because they are usually around other dogs instead

of other tigers.Interviewer: Mm, so do you think they will learn to bark from other dogs?Vesna: Yes.Interviewer: Do you think they would learn to hunt, when they are adults? Do you think

they would hunt like a tiger, or behave like dogs?Vesna: They’d probably behave like dogs because they’ve grown up with dogs.

The adopted tiger cub example provided an interesting contrast with the adopted childexample. An adopted child grows up to speak like his or her adopted parents, an adoptedtiger, however, continues to growl like a tiger. Some interviewees were confused by the


unusual context of the adopted tiger. This observation supports Carey’s (1985) assertionthat a child’s theory of biology is first developed around human beings and then transferredto other organisms on the basis of similarity to human beings. According to Carey’s thesis,it is logical that young children who understand that language (rather than the ability tospeak) is a culturally inherited practice would think that the utterance of dogs and tigers alsois culturally inherited. It may be that the human-centric nature of young children’s thinkingimpacts on their understandings of inheritance.

Differentiating Phenotype and Genotype

More than three quarters of all students (76%) spontaneously referred to either genes orDNA when asked to explain why offspring tend to resemble their parents. Other studentssaid they had heard of genes or DNA when the words were introduced by the interviewer.More secondary students (92%) were better able to differentiate between inheritance andsome kind of genetic mechanism that causes inheritance compared with the younger children(60%). Ten-year-old Vesna, for example, needed considerable probing from the interviewerto talk about genes when trying to explain why offspring resemble their parents even thoughshe had mentioned the word “genes” previously in the interview.

Vesna (Year 5, 10 years old)Interviewer: What makes puppies look like their parents do you think?Vesna: Um because that dog wouldn’t look like that dog because the mother probably

doesn’t look like that, so it will grow up to look like their parents instead ofother dogs.

Interviewer: Yes, so why, what makes them look like their parents?Vesna: I’m not exactly sure, but they probably like are the same color and they prob-

ably have similar noses and they grow up like that.Interviewer: You mentioned genes before.Vesna: Yes.Interviewer: Do you think it’s got anything to do with genes?Vesna: Um probably because they look very similar and like when they have babies

they get genes from their parents and not from other dogs.

Unlike Vesna, most students, like 11-year-old Kevin, spontaneously referred to eithergenes or DNA as demonstrated in a previous excerpt. Later in the interview when askedwhy offspring resemble their parents Kevin again referred to blood and DNA. Furtherprobing, however, revealed that he did not have an understanding of what DNA is and whatit does.

Kevin (Year 6, 11 years old)Interviewer: Why do you think it is that puppies, or the young things like humans as well

as puppies, have the same features as adult dogs?Kevin: Um because they have the same sort of blood and everything, or something

like that.Interviewer: How do you think the blood makes them look the same?Kevin: Because like when they were born they would get like things from their mum

into them, so that means they would grow up looking like their mum and dad.Interviewer: And what are those things, do you think, that they get from their mum and

dad?Kevin: DNA and everything like that.Interviewer: What do you think DNA is?Kevin: I’m not sure.

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Interviewer: Do you know whereabouts it might be?Kevin: In your blood.Interviewer: Ok and what does it do, what does the DNA do to make the puppies look like

their parents?Kevin: Um, not really sure.Interviewer: It’s a bit tricky isn’t it. That’s okay. Have you ever heard of genes?Kevin: Yes.Interviewer: What do you know about genes?Kevin: Well I’ve heard about them, but I don’t really know that much about them.Interviewer: Do you know anything about them at all?Kevin: No, not really?

Other children spontaneously referred to genes and/or DNA when explaining why off-spring resemble their parents and could clearly explain that it is the genes or the DNA thatcaused offspring to resemble their parents. For example, Marcus spontaneously explainedthat we look the way we do because of “DNA, genes and stuff” that are “passed on fromthe parents to the child . . . basically they both have characteristics that they pass on to thechild.” Marcus also was able to loosely associate the concept of a gene with chromosomesand a double helix structure.

This data confirms the expectation in this study that children of this age range would havebeen exposed to and would have some ideas about basic genetics concepts prior to formalinstruction. The next part of the interview probed students’ conceptual understandings ofbasic genetics concepts such as genes and DNA.

Conceptual Understandings of Genetics Concepts

Primary children tended to have a poor understanding of concepts such as genes andDNA as indicated by their average score of 3.4 out of 10 for this section of the interview.Some of the secondary students had a better understanding of these concepts, however,many also did not. The secondary students’ average score was 4.7 out of 10 for this part ofthe interview. As indicated above, many of these students had heard of the terms, but couldnot elaborate any further about what they might be or what they might do. Some studentsdid not differentiate between the concept of a “gene” and the notion of characteristics. Forexample in the interview excerpt below, Bradley explicitly said that the bright pink tongueand floppy ears of a dog are examples of genes. This phenomenon was also reported byVenville and Treagust (1998) and Lewis and Kattmann (2004). Bowler (1989) suggestedthat the crucial issue in the history of genetics was how the notion of genetic units eventuallyemerged. Like the history of genetics, this distinction between phenotype and genotype maywell be a critical conceptual change in the early development of a child’s understanding ofgenetics.

Bradley (Year 5, 10 years old)Bradley: DNA is in our blood and genes are, genes are like things that are passed on.

Like DNA can only be passed on when you mate. Genes can get passed onanyway. Genes, they are sort of like, like these (dogs) would probably havethe genes of having a bright pink tongue, that’s a gene. [Interviewer: I see.]And they would have the gene of floppy ears, that’s a gene, that’s somethingthat’s passed on through all animals of that species.

Interviewer: Like a characteristic, do you mean?Bradley: Mm.Interviewer: Okay, and what about DNA?


Bradley: DNA’s in our blood and DNA is used to identify things. Like I can identifya lot of crime, forensic scientists that have to sample DNA that can be hairs,it can be anything, they can sample DNA and they can match it up with this,with the prime suspect. So that’s DNA, it’s pieces of the body that can be usedto identify things.

Interviewer: Mm, and what do you think DNA looks like?Bradley: DNA can come in many forms. I know that they can do DNA in the staircase

thing, but DNA can be hair, DNA can be fingerprints, DNA can be anything.Interviewer: And whereabouts in the body do you think DNA is?Bradley: Ah . . . outside, the outside pieces of body, like hair, fingerprints, footprints.Interviewer: So it’s the outside things?Bradley: Yeah, the outside body that can be identified.

Bradley’s idea that genes and DNA are different things because genes are something thatmake people look like their parents and DNA is an external factor that makes individualsunique or different from other people was consistently expressed by younger children. Sixtyfour percent of the primary students asked this question said genes and DNA are differentthings. For example, Vesna’s (Year 5, 10 years old) interview showed that she had similarideas to Bradley, in particular that DNA is for identification. “Well, DNA is when you takesome part of somebody’s body, say like the hair, like a fingerprint or something and dosome tests on it and you can find out what or who the person is.” Vesna also explained howshe thought that genes and DNA are different, “I’m not exactly sure, but they probably lookquite different, they are different, they do different things.”

The idea that the primary function of DNA is for identification was also evident in theinterviews with the older, high school students with 50% stating that the primary functionof DNA was for “identification” and another 33% saying it was for the investigation ofcrime. Fourteen-year-old Alice, for example, initially described genes and DNA as havingdifferent functions with genes being responsible for making us look like our parents becausethey “form things” in our bodies and DNA is “to tell us apart from other people.” Whenasked by the interviewer, Alice eventually recognized the similarities between the genesand DNA that she described. She said they are similar because they both come from yourparents, but she did not articulate any understanding of a similar (or the same) structure orfunction:

Alice (Year 9, 14 years old)Interviewer: So do you think there is something similar between DNA and genes, are they

the same thing or are they completely different, do you think?Alice: I think they are similar.Interviewer: Why?Alice: Because genes come from your parents and I think DNA comes from your

parents too, isn’t it? You got some of it from your parents. Yeah, so they’renot that much different.

What is obvious to geneticists, but not to many of these students, is that both genes and DNA,essentially being the same thing, influence our genetic makeup, and make organisms similarto, and different from, other organisms. Alice also thought that genes exist in the body partthat they control and not in other places in the body. This idea is also evident in the historyof genetics. A theory that gained popularity during the 19th century, the atomistic view,suggested that small particles were produced in the various parts of the body, migrated tothe semen and menstrual fluid and were responsible in the embryo for building the body partfrom where they came (Dunne, 1965). This misconception is intuitive and the notion that

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the whole genome is carried within the DNA of every cell is probably not well understoodbecause it is counterintuitive.

Interviewer: Whereabouts in your body do you think genes are?Alice: In your head, heart, they might be around everywhere, are they around

everywhere?Interviewer: They could be, why do you think that?Alice: Because like that’s how our hands look like our parent’s hands.Interviewer: Do you think our genes for our hands are in our hands?Alice: Yes.

There was a broad spectrum of understanding about the causal mechanisms of inheritancein the older students. For example, Roger was unusual in his age group of 14 year olds(Year 9) in that he did not articulate the words gene or DNA in connection with the idea ofinheritance. Even when the word “gene” was introduced he did not have a strong idea of whatgenes are or what they do and possibly confused them with gametes. Marcus (Year 10, 15years old), on the other hand, had completed an introductory course on sexual reproductionand genetics and was able to explain that a gene “carries the DNA” and consists of a “code”. . . “to tell the genes what color eyes are” but he could not make a connection with proteinsto explain how genes take action.

Integration of Genetics with an Understanding of Life

Few students were able to accurately reconcile their understandings of genetics withtheir understanding of living things in a way that was scientifically acceptable. Only 28% ofprimary and 29% of secondary students correctly identified all living things and nonlivingthings discussed in the interview as either having or not having genes or DNA. Some studentsfelt that some nonliving things could have DNA because they could be identified or becausethey are produced from data, like a computer program. For example, when asked whethera cartoon character, Digimon, has DNA, Bradley said yes, because it is generated from acomputer which also has DNA.

Bradley (Year 5, 10 years old)Bradley: Ah, it depends. Digimon is a computer program but you can find DNA on

the computer. If you got it as like one of those little Digimon things it wouldhave DNA because that’s the DNA inside the computer, that’s producing thecharacteristics. So yeah, if it’s in that form.

Interviewer: So computers have DNA?Bradley: Yes, that’s the things that make them go around and you can identify it by

looking at its DNA by looking at its motherboard. You can sample like moth-erboards and that’s DNA.

Bradley’s conception of DNA could be construed as sophisticated because he seemedto associate the notion of DNA with the notion of data or information that can generatesomething, like the way that data in a computer can generate a character like a Digimon.The notion of data in a computer as a metaphor for DNA is potentially a very good one,particularly for a child of 10 years. However, Bradley used the metaphor literally andhe transferred the fictional idea of Digimon having DNA to his real-life understandingof computers. His lack of knowledge that DNA is only in living things and that this isdifferent from data in computers rendered his understanding incorrect from a strictly sci-entific point of view. Another student felt that cars have DNA because each model of car


can be identified as being different from other models. These examples demonstrate thateven though the idea that DNA is for identification is consistent with scientific practices,such a narrow understanding of DNA has implications for the students’ broader theory ofbiology.

Students’ poor understanding of plants as living, sexually reproducing things also createdmany difficulties for students when asked to discuss the kinds of things that might have genesor DNA. Only 36% of primary students and 46% of secondary students said that both theplant and tree discussed in the interview had either genes or DNA. The following interviewexcerpt shows that Bradley correctly said that a tree would have DNA, but expressed theseemingly bizarre idea that the tree would get its DNA from the sun, water, and ground.This idea is possibly the result of a combination of two things, firstly Bradley’s rudimentaryscientific understanding that plants require sunlight, water, and nutrients from the soil togenerate more plant material and his poor understanding of plant reproduction.

Bradley (Year 5, 10 years old)Interviewer: What about a tree, do you think that’s got DNA?Bradley: Yes, a tree has a lot of DNA because um, like you can see because a tree

reproduces but it doesn’t reproduce with another tree.Interviewer: It doesn’t have babies, does it, it has seeds.Bradley: Yes, it has seeds, but that’s used for like different, like the sun would shine on

that tree and it would form seeds, so that’s the DNA being passed on from thesun, which is the heat on to the tree and the rain will pass its DNA, which isthe moisture, on to the tree.

Interviewer: To make a new tree, the DNA comes from the sun and the rain?Bradley: Yeah, and things like the ground, they would feed, like from the ground.Interviewer: The tree does?Bradley: Mm hum.Interviewer: So it gets DNA from the ground as well?Bradley: Mm hum.Interviewer: And it puts all that together to make the seed?Bradley: Yeah, it makes the seed and the seed goes in the ground and grows.

Indications of a poor understanding of living things were not restricted to the youngerstudents. There was evidence that some older students had misconceptions about cartooncharacters and uncertainties about whether plants are living or not. The results of this studyconfirmed previous studies that young children often fail to recognize plants as living things(Carey, 1985; Venville, 2004) and consequently, in this study, they failed to recognize thatplants have genes and DNA. The following interview excerpt demonstrates that for this14-year-old boy, the problem was not that he did not understand that all living things havegenes, but that he thought that the Digimon character might be living and that plants mightnot be living.

Julian (Year 9, 14 years old)Interviewer: We talked about genes. Which of these things here do you think would have

genes in them?Julian: All the living ones, like dinosaur, bird, cat, fly, and Digimon.Interviewer: Okay, so tell me why you think the Digimon has genes.Julian: Because it’s living, and it needs to reproduce.Interviewer: What about the tree and the flower, do you think they’ve got genes?Julian: I’m not sure, probably they might.Interviewer: Why do you think they might?Julian: I’m pretty sure animals do.

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Interviewer: Okay, but you’re not too sure about plants?Julian: Yes.Interviewer: What about the car and the fire and the sun, have they got genes in them?Julian: No, I don’t think so.Interviewer: So you think all living things have got genes, but you’re not too sure whether

the tree and the plant are living things?Julian: Yes.

Some students had a more scientific understanding of living things that was clearly linkedwith their understanding of genetics. For example 14-year-old Lenny, who had studied anintroductory reproduction and genetics course, explained his idea that all living thingshave genes because living things are made up of cells and genes make up cells. He alsoincluded plants within the superordinate concept of living thing, but interestingly said thatthe Digimon might have genes if it is “existing.”

Lenny (Year 10, 14 years old)Interviewer: Let’s have a look at these pictures here. Which of these things do you think

would have genes in them?Lenny: The dinosaur, the bird, the plant, the fly and the cat and the tree. If that’s

existing then that too.Interviewer: The Digimon?Lenny: Yeah, every living thing, basically.Interviewer: So you think all living things have got genes in them?Lenny: Yeah.Interviewer: So why do you think that?Lenny: Ah because genes make up cells and living things are made up by cells.

The interviews revealed that students from all age groups sometimes indicated that non-living things, such as cartoon characters and computers contain DNA or genes because thesethings were seen by these students as living (Lenny), to have data (Bradley), to reproduce(Julian), or are identifiable. Students generally failed to recognize that living things can bedefined in terms of the presence of genes or DNA and that DNA is unique to living things.Many of the students’ image of DNA seemed to be abiotic, like a bar code, that could beused for identification.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Theoretical Interpretation of Students’ Understandings of Genetics

The results presented in this study indicated that the majority of children between theages of 9 and 15 years had developed what Springer (1999) called a “theory of kinship”or Solomon and Johnson (2000) a “theory of inheritance.” Unlike the majority of childrenyounger than 7 years of age, these students could differentiate between biological inheri-tance and cultural transmission (Solomon et al., 1996). Moreover, they could identify therelationship between kinship and birth and make reasonable, but not always correct, predic-tions about phenotype. For most of the students in this study, however, their understandingsabout kinship and inheritance could not be considered a theory of genetics (Springer, 1999).While most students in this study were familiar with terms such as gene and DNA, they didnot have a conceptual understanding of what genes and DNA are or what they do. Only avery few of the older students who had completed an introductory genetics course prior tothis study had any real notions that genes are in every cell of all living things or that theyconsist of a chemical code of DNA with information about phenotype. From a theoretical


perspective, few of the children in this study had progressed beyond the understandings ofthe 7-year-old children reported in Solomon et al. (1996) and Springer’s (1999) studies.This indicates a considerable conceptual divide between children’s understandings of kin-ship and inheritance and a genuine theory of genetics. The following discussion will explorefactors that may contribute to this conceptual divide.

Origins of Students’ Understandings of Genetics

In trying to understand where students gain their knowledge of genetics concepts, we canturn to the work of Nelkin and Lindee (2004) who explored the interpretation of the geneconcept by popular culture. Nelkin and Lindee claim that the gene that is represented bypopular culture has a very different symbolic meaning compared with biological definitions.For example, they claim that narratives of popular culture describe the gene as something thatdictates our looks, health, behavior and intelligence and that there is a cultural expectationthat genes link us to each other and determine emotional connection and social bonds.While Nelkin and Lindee themselves make no overt distinction, their work indicates asubtle difference in the way that genes and DNA are represented in popular culture. Incontrast with the gene, they claim that “DNA takes on a cultural meaning as the essence ofthe person” (Nelkin & Lindee, 2004, p. 46) and that popular descriptions of DNA emphasizeits “awesome powers of sorting and identification” (p. 47).

The narratives discussed by Nelkin and Lindee (2004) are reflected by the descriptionsof gene and DNA that are given by the students in this study. The bifurcation in the way thatstudents understand these concepts is likely to be a result of the popular cultural uses of theterms “gene” and “DNA” in soap operas, movies, magazines, comics, and electronic games.For example, beliefs that genes are passed from parents to offspring transform our use of theterm “gene” into a symbol or metaphor for relationships. From a scientific perspective, theidea that genes are passed from parents to offspring is not a misconception in itself. However,the strong focus on relationships as opposed to the structural and functional aspects of thegene mean that this metaphor reinforces understandings of kinship and inheritance and de-emphasizes understandings of genetics. The message conveyed in stories about identifyingcriminals, suspected fathers, or the resurrection of the dead, is that DNA becomes the site ofidentity. Here the focus is on a particular technological use that humans have for DNA, ratherthan the role that DNA has within genetics mechanisms. This analysis suggests that popularculture plays a significant role in maintaining the status of children’s naı̈ve understandingsof kinship and inheritance in preference to more sophisticated understandings of genetics.

Ontological Barriers to Learning

From an ontological perspective, the data presented in this paper demonstrate that manyof these young students already had developed ideas that are likely to act as barriers to thedevelopment of more sophisticated understandings of the nature of genetics. For example,some of the younger children did not differentiate between a gene and a characteristic.Like the first generation of experimental geneticists from the first half of the twentiethcentury, for these students, a “gene” is, in practice, a physical trait. Subsequently, almost allstudents who were familiar with the term, “gene” had no knowledge of what a gene does.This confirms Lewis and Kattmann’s (2004) assertion that, due to their prior knowledge,students have little need to consider a mechanism by which a gene could be expressed.

If this prior knowledge remains unchallenged, it will create barriers to more sophisticatedontological understandings of genetics concepts and students will continue to see genesas “trait bearing” particles (Lewis & Kattmann, 2004). If, in students’ minds, a gene is

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equivalent to a physical trait, or they have no knowledge about the involvement of genes inthe biochemical production of proteins, then there can be no understanding of the hierarchyof biological processes through which the environment or social interaction can influencethe physical or behavioral development of an organism. This condition will support notionsof genetic determinism and is likely to be a formidable barrier to students understanding thepotential social and technological benefits and consequences of advances in biotechnology.Trumbo (2000) explains how important it is that we do not view genetics as fate, but asan important contributor to phenotype. He uses the example of the treatment of congenitaldwarfism with growth hormone to demonstrate how technology enables us to deliberatelyalter our environment in response to genetic variation. Without understanding that genescode for proteins, and that hormones are proteins, the benefits of this technology would beincomprehensible.

Epistemological Barriers to Learning

The findings presented in this study viewed from an epistemological perspective indicatethat the understandings that students have about genetics are piecemeal and disconnectedand do not represent what Ausubel (1963, 1968) and later Novak (1993) described asmeaningful learning. For example, for many of these students, the gene has a completelydifferent function and perhaps even bodily location compared with DNA. Moreover, theirunderstandings of genetics concepts were not well connected with their understandingsof living things. Appropriate connections, therefore, have not been made between newconcepts such as gene and DNA and often were not formed between such concepts and thestudents’ existing framework and understandings of biology.

Mayr (1982) claimed that genetics is a core aspect of biology because it explains livingthings’ ability to replicate. An appropriate action to potentially remediate some of thelack of cohesiveness in students’ ideas would be to encourage teachers to make explicitlinks between genetics concepts and living things, however, the nature of life is rarelytaught together with genetics. The seven characteristics of life often are discussed in earlyhigh school biology courses as nutrition, excretion, growth and development, reproduction,respiration, movement, and sensitivity (King & Sullivan, 1991). Why are genes and/orDNA rarely explicitly taught as a criterion for life? Are biology curricula and textbooksso steeped in tradition that they do not readily change with our modern views of how lifecan be defined? It is possible that learning about basic genetics will help young children toconsolidate their understanding of living things. A few of the older students who had studiedan introductory genetics course were able to see the big picture that living things are madeup of cells and cells are made by genes. It may be that genetics, and the associated conceptsof genes and DNA, is an excellent focal point to enable younger children to bring togethertheir disparate ideas about plants and animals to coalesce into the overarching concept ofliving things, however, this will require new approaches to curriculum.

Implications for the Teaching of Genetics

There are several implications from this study that are potentially important for ap-proaches to the teaching and learning of genetics. First, the notion of moving students froma theory of kinship or inheritance to a theory of genetics may be a useful way of looking atwhat we are trying to achieve with introductory genetics courses and may provide a usefulframework for the planning and evaluation of conceptual change. Second, it is useful forteachers to be aware of the very strong, cultural origins of children’s ontological understand-ings of basic genetics concepts that may be a barrier to further learning. Finally, the results


of this study confirm Wandersee and Fisher’s (2000) claim that knowing biology is not aboutmemorizing tidbits of unconnected information but more about understanding biologicalprinciples and theories. Students are exposed to concepts such as genes and DNA from themedia everyday, and a worthy goal of science education should be to help students placethis knowledge in a coherent form within a robust and interconnected, meaningful theory ofbiology. This indicates that the focus of instruction should not be on teaching more facts andinformation, but on integration of knowledge, on building coherent networks of understand-ing within genetics and between notions of kinship and inheritance and genetics, and thestudents’ understanding of life and biology in general. This is potentially an ideal contextin which to test Wandersee, Fisher, and Moody’s (2000) metaphor of mapping as an idealprocess of knowing and learning biology. Important future research may revolve around theeffects on understanding of students being involved in cognitive mapping tasks that helpthem to construct a big picture of biology from the detail that they learn, particularly ingenetics.

Reflection on Theoretical Framework

The advantages of using both an ontological and epistemological perspective as partof the theoretical framework for this study have been considerable. The examination ofthe data through two perspectives has provided a mechanism by which the complexitiesof students’ scientific understandings can be more comprehensively understood comparedwith a single perspective. It is clear from the results of this study that the understanding ofgenetics is not simply about ontology, the way that students understand the basic nature ofthings such as genes and DNA. Understanding genetics is also is about epistemology, theway that knowledge is interconnected and structured within larger conceptual frameworks.Moreover, this research revealed the impact that popular culture has on how children knowand understand science, in particular how they understand genetics and biotechnology.One of the limitations of this study is that there are other perspectives, such as an affectiveperspective, that could provide further illumination on issues such as students’ emotions andmotivations with regard to genetics that may influence their understandings. An importantpoint for future research is to acknowledge that learning can be viewed through severaltheoretical lenses and that each lens can provide a unique way of interpreting the findings.

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An exploration of young children's understandings of genetics concepts from ontological and epistemological perspectives