Factors explaining students’ attitudes towards learning in genetics and belief in genetic determinism

Author:

Aivelo TuomasORCID,Uitto Anna

Abstract

It is important to know how current education affects students’ attitudes towards learning, specifically in a quickly evolving and societally relevant field of biology such as genetics. The aim of this study is to examine how teacher and student-related factors explain secondary school students’ attitudes towards the applications of genetics and learning in genetics. In total 421 students aged between 17 and 20 from ten schools participated in the study. We measured students’ liking of, self-concept in and experienced utility of genetics and students’ attitude towards gene technology and belief in genetic determinism. We carried out item response theory based modelling by including teachers’ teaching emphases, learning materials, student gender and the number of attended biology courses as explanatory variables. The attitude towards gene technology and belief in genetic determinism correlated with all independent factors. Male students’ attitude towards gene technology was more liberal; they had higher self-concept, but experienced less utility in genetics and their belief in genetic determinism was weaker than in women. If the teacher’s emphasis was on Heredity or if the textbook with stronger Mendelian emphasis was used in teaching, students had more negative attitudes towards learning in genetics, but the belief in genetic determinism was stronger. In comparison, teacher’s Developmental emphasis explained students’ lower belief in genetic determinism, whereas Structural emphasis correlated with students’ liking of genetics. The results suggest that teachers’ approaches in genetics teaching as well as learning materials need updates to fulfil the needs for genetics literacy in current science education.

Publisher

Center for Open Science

Cited by 2 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

1. Revealing the profile of undergraduate students’ understanding of mendelian inheritance concepts;AIP Conference Proceedings;2024

2. A systematic review of genetic literacy interventions in secondary schools;THE 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION (ICoMSE) 2021: Science and Mathematics Education Research: Current Challenges and Opportunities;2023

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3