Contextual influences on undergraduate biology students' reasoning and representations of evolutionary concepts

Context is the background or the settings of an event or idea. It is only when events or ideas are considered within the context in which they occur that they can be fully understood. In education, the application of knowledge communicated in one context to a different one is a central feature of learning. However, knowledge transfer can be affected by multiple factors including contexts used. Context plays a vital role in both shaping students’ learning and in eliciting their knowledge. Therefore, understanding how context can help or hinder learning and how context impacts knowledge assessment is important for improving science learning outcomes.For my dissertation, I studied contextual influences on the ways students reason and represent their knowledge. My studies explored two types of contexts: surface features of prompts provided to students (e.g., organism used) and the mode of response requested (e.g., written narratives vs constructed models). I analysed the effect of prompt surface features on the content of students’ written responses and on the architecture of models they constructed to explain evolution by natural selection. I also analysed the effect of mode on the content and level of scientific plausibility of students’ responses. In addition, I explored the association between instruction and prior achievement and susceptibility to contextual influences.My results indicate that prompt contextual features and mode of response are eliciting differences in the content of students’ representations. Contextual susceptibility decreased with instruction and higher prior academic achievement. This could indicate that they are novice learners and have a fragile understanding of either the subject matter (evolution), the alternative representation that was required (constructing models), or of both the subject matter and the representation. Incorporating multiple contexts and modes of assessment has potential to generate a more holistic view of students’ understanding and may promote greater transfer by requiring students to think and reason across contexts.