CTS Guide: Adaptation, pp 124-125- Section IV Research Summaries

Intentionality of Adaptation

• Current studies of students’ ideas about adaptation continue to show that students think organisms deliberately adapt to changes in their environment (Coley and Tanner 2012; Keskin and Kose 2015; Nehm and Reilly 2007).

• Middle school and high school students may believe that organisms are able to intentionally change their bodily structure to be able to live in a particular habitat or that they respond to a changed environment by seeking a more favorable environment. It has been suggested that the language about adaptation used by teachers or textbooks may cause or reinforce these beliefs (AAAS 2009).

• An older study by Brumby (1979) of Australian and English biology students showed that even after studying upper level biology, only 18% of the students could correctly apply natural selection to evolutionary change. Most believed that individuals can adapt to a change in the environment if they need to.

Lamarckian Beliefs

• Many students ages 12–16 display Lamarckian beliefs about inheritance of acquired characteristics. This belief has been demonstrated both before and after instruction in genetics and evolution (Driver et al. 1994).