Possible Partial Models of genetic inheritance in high school students

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22600/1518-8795.ienci2023v28n3p148

Keywords:

Mental models, mental representations, symbolic representations, genetic heritage, high school

Abstract

This work analyzed the mental models from the perspective of the Possible Partial Models (PPM), which allow us to know the functioning of the students’ explanatory processes for a certain phenomenology. The sample was made up of 186 high school students who took the subject of Biology V, who answered a previously validated questionnaire. The results evidenced three models. The MPPI and MPPII show substantial and static conceptions of genetic processes, which lead the student to generate explanations that are far from scientific knowledge. Students who exhibit the third model MPPIII, make more complete inferences closer to scientific knowledge, and show relationships between the mechanisms of inheritance and meiotic processes. These findings make it possible to recognize that all the students in the sample can, within a PPM, of constructing sound reasonings about genetic inheritance and highlight the importance of students explicit their reasoning to identify the main comprehension problems about this topic.

Author Biographies

Beatriz Eugenia García Rivera, Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología-UNAM

Biologist from the Faculty of Sciences, Master and Doctor in Pedagogy from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, all from UNAM. Academic of the Group of Cognition and Didactics of Sciences of the ICAT-UNAM, where she participates in the development of multidisciplinary educational projects that link aspects theoretical with the generation of proposals, tangible educational materials and digitals, as well as teacher training, for the teaching and learning of science in different contexts and educational levels. Her line of work is focuses particularly on the teaching and learning of biology. Co-author of various articles, chapters and research books on these issues.

Leticia Gallegos Cázares, Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología-UNAM

Academic at the Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology of the UNAM. I’m a Physicist and I hold a Master in Higher Education and a PhD in Pedagogy all at the UNAM. Professor of the postgraduate degree in Pedagogy of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and of the master’s degree in Teaching for Higher Secondary Education. Author of more than 40 research publications about conceptual training, conceptual change and science conceptions of teachers in international and national refereed journals. Dr. Gallegos has carried out research in preschool children on the formation of physics concepts and has participated in various projects for the development of teaching materials as well as intervention projects in the classroom. She is the author and co-author of several books and book chapters on science education, as well as physics textbooks for the high school level. In addition, Dr. Gallegos has participated in various investigations supported by UNAM, CONACYT, ILCE and SEP. Some of these projects are related to the knowledge of the mechanisms of construction of conceptual representations in science in students of different levels and contexts; teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science and learning and the way they act on teaching practice. She has been a member of the Experimental Teaching of Sciences Group at ICAT since its inception, and for 17 years, this group  currently is called Cognition and Didactics of Sciences Group. Dr. Gallegos has earned various national recognitions as well as awards and distinctions.  

Fernando Flores Camacho, Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología-UNAM

Dr. Flores is a physicist and holds a PhD  degree in Pedagogy. His main field of work is Science Education. He has been a professor at the Science Faculty at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and, currently, he is a professor in the master’s and doctoral programs in Pedagogy at UNAM. Also, Dr. Flores has been a guest teacher at foreign universities such as Salta University (Sao Paulo University), Autonomous University of Madrid, the National University of Colombia and the International Centre of Physics. Dr. Flores has authored more than 50 papers published in international and national journals in the field of science education, in areas such as conceptual change, representations, didactics and conceptions of nature of science in teacher. In addition, he is also the author of several book chapters and books in the science education field, as well as he is the author of physics textbooks. Dr. Flores has been the leader of several research and development projects, with support from UNAM, CONACYT and SEP. Some of these projects have been the focus of the cognitive mechanisms of conceptualization of science concepts and representations in student’s in areas of physics, biology and chemistry at different school levels and populations. Other research has been focused on the nature of science in science teacher. He has been responsible for the project of the new science laboratories for the high school program of the UNAM and has participated in several national programs of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) as the most recent reforms of basic education, PRONAP program and the coordinator of sciences for Enciclomedia. Dr. Flores is a member of the National Research System (SNI) at level II. He holds the level D at the PRIDE program, and is a member of several research associations such as the Consejo Mexicano de Investigación Educativa (COMIE), EARLI and Academia Mexicana de Profesores de Ciencias Naturales.

Araceli Báez Islas, Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología-UNAM

Biologist, from the Faculty of Higher Studies Zaragoza-UNAM, Master in Teaching for Upper Secondary Education-Biology by the Faculty of Sciences-UNAM, Doctorate in Pedagogy at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UNAM. She has participated in various environmental projects within the Agricultural and Livestock Forestry Research Institute within the Group of Geomatics, such as "Risk of the winter habitat of the monarch butterfly due to Scolytus mundus and climate change”, as well as in educational projects in the Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology-UNAM as "Processes of transformation of scientific representations in students of the baccalaureate under a multi-representational environment supported by technologies digitals”, is co-author of books and articles on science education, member of the HHMI Biointeractive Academy of Ambassadors for Science and high school teacher.

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2023-12-28

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García-Rivera, B. E., Gallegos-Cázares, L., Flores-Camacho, F., & Báez Islas, A. (2023). Possible Partial Models of genetic inheritance in high school students. Investigations in Science Education, 28(3), 148–169. https://doi.org/10.22600/1518-8795.ienci2023v28n3p148

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Vol. 28 No. 3 (2023): December of 2023

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Copyright (c) 2023 Beatriz Eugenia García Rivera, Leticia Gallegos Cázares, Fernando Flores Camacho, Araceli Báez Islas

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