EvoPrime
Evolution in Elementary to Primary Education

Project Logo

Cognitive biases often influence the understanding of evolution. In EvoPrime, we aim to find approaches to initiate scientific ideas already in young children to enable a subsequent coherent knowledge development at school.

Project data


Research linesResearch Line Domain-Specific Learning in Kindergarten and School
DepartmentsBiology Education
Period1/1/201712/31/2023
Statuscompleted
IPN researchersProf. Dr. Ute Harms (Project lead)

Knowledge of evolution is insufficiently used for reasoning in particular contexts of evolution at different study stages. Besides scientific and naïve conceptions, learners also have, cognitive biases such as teleology, essentialism and intentionalism. These seem to be manifest in context-dependent constraints of knowledge relating to evolution (e.g. animals vs. plants). It seems that cognitive constraints hinder the use of scientific conceptions for reasoning. Research verifies the consistence of misconceptions over different study stages such as middle and high school, college, and for preservice teachers. To date, knowledge development of evolution in early childhood has hardly been researched. Psychology reveals that cognitive biases exist from childhood to adulthood and influence the knowledge of evolution. However, these conceptions can hinder learning progressions on evolution. Therefore, EvoPrime aims for (1) initiating scientific conceptions of evolution by (2) accounting for cognitive biases to prepare learners’ naïve conceptions for building knowledge of evolution.

Publications

Adler, I.K., Fiedler, D., Harms, U. (2022). Darwin’s tales–A content analysis of how evolution is presented in children’s books. PLOS ONE 17(7). Article e0269197. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269197

Bruckermann, T., Fiedler, D., & Harms, U. (2020). Identifying precursory concepts in evolution during early childhood: A systematic literature review. Studies in Science Education, 57(1), 85-127. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057267.2020.1792678