Misconceptions of natural selection: Does culture background play a role?

Natural selection is a central concept in ecology but many students hold misconceptions of natural selection.  Past research identified several alternative conceptions of natural selection and demonstrated their prevalence among students even after instruction. Limited research has been done to explore how the misconceptions are formed and the influencing factors.  Particularly, little has been done to examine the potential role of cultural background in the formation of these misconceptions.  The objective of this study was to investigate if Hispanic and non-Hispanic students had different patterns of misconceptions of natural selection and to explore possible factors, especially culture-related factors, related to the misconceptions.  The Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection developed by Anderson et al. (Journal of Research in Science Teaching 9:952-978, 2002) was administered to 282 undergraduate students (38 Hispanic and 244 non-Hispanic) in an ecology course in Fall 2006 to assess student misconceptions of nature selection.  Preliminary results showed that the most common misconceptions for all students were mutations occur to meet the needs of the population (47-52% of the students) and traits change to meet needs (49-50%).  There were large differences between the two groups on some of the misconceptions. A greater percentage of the Hispanic students selected individual gradually developed traits they needed and mutations occur to meet the needs of the population. A considerably smaller percentage of them considered high number of matings with many different mates as higher fitness.  These results suggest there are appreciable differences in the patterns of misconceptions between Hispanic and non-Hispanic students and some of them may hint possible culture influences.  The pattern of differences between the groups was not always consistent, however, and a second round of study is being conducted in Spring 2007 and follow up interviews are being conducted to explore the factors contributing to the misconceptions.