是否要求学生将进化中的概念应用到虚构的环境中,与新的生物学背景相比,提高他们的理解,考试表现或材料的享受?还是通过从真正的生物学中抽出时间来损害他们的教育?在我们的机构,我们有时会要求学生将生活史理论应用于虚构电影中的物种,电视节目或书籍。以前,我们用了一篇关于生活史理论的事实文章,来补充我们的课本.我们写了一个替代的介绍生活史理论(包括在额外的文件供教育使用),使用托尔金的虚构物种从他的指环王的书。我们还介绍了生物物种的定义,性选择,性二态,亲属选择,和障碍原则,因为这些概念在讨论虚构物种时自然产生。生活史理论预测影响繁殖的性状之间存在很强的相关性,成长和生存,这些都是由物种的生态塑造的。因此,我们可以通过让学生推断从未被描述过的虚构物种的特征和生态学方面来教授生活史理论,基于虚构来源中包含的部分信息。在一个大的,亚利桑那州立大学第三年本科进化论课程,我们随机分配了总共264名学生的16个教程部分,以阅读我们关于指环王的生活史理论的文章,或者我们以前在课程中使用过的事实文章。我们发现两组在生活史问题上的考试成绩几乎相同,除了阅读过我们文章的《指环王》的粉丝在考试中表现更好。享受,对于阅读了虚构文章的学生来说,对生活史理论的参与度和兴趣在李克特5点量表上大约高出一个完整点,并且具有高度统计学差异(所有问题的T检验p<0.001)。两组在熟悉或享受《指环王》故事本身方面没有区别。阅读将生活史理论应用于《指环王》物种的文章,既没有帮助也没有损害考试成绩,但确实显著提高了学生的享受,对生活史理论的参与和兴趣,甚至提高了喜欢《指环王》的学生的考试成绩。用小说教科学也可能有助于吸引非传统学生,比如世界建设者,在我们的教育机构之外。通过鼓励学生将科学思想应用于他们自己文化中最喜欢的故事,我们也许能够改善包容性和教育。
背景:在线版本包含10.1186/s12052-022-00160-8提供的补充材料。
Does asking students to apply concepts from evolution to a fictional context, compared to a novel biological context, improve their understanding, exam performance or enjoyment of the material? Or does it harm their education by taking time away from true biology? At our institution, we sometimes ask students to apply life history theory to species from fictional movies, television shows or books. Previously, we had used a factual article on life history theory, to supplement our textbook. We wrote an alternative introduction to life history theory (included in the additional files for educational use), using Tolkien\'s fictional species from his Lord of the Rings books. We also introduce the biological species definition, sexual selection, sexual dimorphism, kin selection, and the handicap principle, as those concepts arose naturally in the discussion of the fictional species. Life history theory predicts strong correlations between traits affecting reproduction, growth and survival, which are all shaped by the ecology of the species. Thus, we can teach life history theory by asking students to infer traits and aspects of the ecology of a fictional species that have never been described, based on the partial information included in the fictional sources. In a large, third year undergraduate evolution course at Arizona State University, we randomized 16 tutorial sections of a total of 264 students to either read our article on the life history theory of Lord of the Rings, or the factual article we had used previously in the course. We found that the exam performance on life history questions for the two groups were almost identical, except that fans of The Lord of the Rings who had read our article did better on the exam. Enjoyment, engagement and interest in life history theory was approximately a full point higher on a 5-point Likert scale for the students that had read the fictional article, and was highly statistically significantly different (T-test p < 0.001 for all questions). There was no difference between the two groups in their familiarity or enjoyment of The Lord of the Rings stories themselves. Reading the article that taught life history theory by applying it to the species of The Lord of the Rings neither helped nor harmed exam performance, but did significantly improve student enjoyment, engagement and interest in life history theory, and even improved exam scores in students who liked The Lord of the Rings. Using fiction to teach science may also help to engage non-traditional students, such as world-builders, outside of our institutions of education. By encouraging students to apply the scientific ideas to their favorite stories from their own cultures, we may be able to improve both inclusivity and education.
BACKGROUND: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12052-022-00160-8.