Unlike in other countries, heredity and genetics appear first in Spanish science standards in secondary levels. However, some researchers have suggested the need of progressively introducing some basic genetic ideas already from primary education levels. In this context of no formal instruction in early stages, the objectives of our work were to…

Biology education research has shown that deeply rooted intuitions can influence students' understanding of biological phenomena. One example is design teleology, the intuition that organisms' traits were designed to fulfill a goal. Another example is psychological essentialism, the intuition that organisms have fixed essences. Past research has…

Each year, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) releases a list of scientific advances that represent significant progress in the field of autism research. The "Summary of Advances" provides short, plain language summaries of the top research breakthroughs selected by the IACC from a pool of research articles nominated by…

Research Findings: Evolution by natural selection is often relegated to the high school curriculum on the assumption that younger students cannot grasp its complexity. We sought to test that assumption by teaching children ages 4-12 (n = 96) a selection-based explanation for biological adaptation and comparing their success to that of adults…

This paper aims to provide developmental data on two connected naive inheritance concepts and to explore the coherence of children's naive biology knowledge. Two tasks examined children and adolescents' (4, 7, 10, and 14 years) conceptions of phenotypic resemblance across kin (in physical characteristics, disabilities, and personality traits). The…

This paper examines the development and consistency of children's (4, 7, 10, and 14 years) naive concepts of inheritance using three tasks. A modified adoption task asked participants to distinguish between biological and social parentage in their predictions and explanations of the origins of different feature types (physical characteristics,…

Restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) are a core feature of autism spectrum disorders. They constitute a major barrier to learning and social adaptation, but research on their definition, cause, and capacity for change has been relatively neglected. The last decade of research has brought new measurement techniques that have improved the…

Biotechnology has a considerable importance in Turkish biology curriculum. This study was designed to explore or indicate Turkish high school and university students' knowledge and attitudes toward biotechnology. A total number of 352 high school and 276 university students were invited to the study. The Biotechnology Knowledge Questionnaire (BKQ)…

Each year the members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee identify recent research findings that made the most impact on the field. For the 2009 Summary of Advances, the IACC selected and summarized 20 studies that gave significant insight into the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the biology of the disorder, potential…

Studies from different theoretical traditions investigating children's inheritance and genetics concepts have adopted a cross-sectional method. This paper is the first to examine both cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in children's basic genetic concepts. It forms part of a larger investigation into the development of intuitive inheritance…