Development and evaluation of the conceptual inventory of natural selection
Tóm tắt
Natural selection as a mechanism of evolution is a central concept in biology; yet, most nonbiology‐majors do not thoroughly understand the theory even after instruction. Many alternative conceptions on this topic have been identified, indicating that the job of the instructor is a difficult one. This article presents a new diagnostic test to assess students' understanding of natural selection. The test items are based on actual scientific studies of natural selection, whereas previous tests have employed hypothetical situations that were often misleading or oversimplified. The Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS) is a 20‐item multiple choice test that employs common alternative conceptions as distractors. An original 12‐item version of the test was field‐tested with 170 nonmajors in 6 classes and 43 biology majors in 1 class at 3 community colleges. The test scores of one subset of nonmajors (
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