| Popis: |
In this study, we are investigating 5- to 14-year-old children's understanding of trait inheritance and within-species variation. Our study focuses primarily on children’s understanding of eye color variation and learning with a lesson on eye color inheritance. We will also measure students' ability to transfer knowledge about eye color inheritance to other genetically-linked traits, such as ear size and fin texture. We will present children with both parents of an animal family. The parents can have either the same phenotype (e.g., both light colored eyes, or both the same top fins) or different phenotypes (e.g., one parent with dark colored eyes and the other with light colored eyes, or parents with different sized ears). In our study, we will investigate which babies child participants think two respective animal parents can have. We will assess this through two different tasks: 1) Judgement Task: We present five different offspring (one at a time), and ask children whether each could be the baby of the two parents. All of the offspring are identical except for the targeted trait (e.g. eye color, ear size, fin texture). The phenotypic variations for the possible offspring are: 1) a naturally occurring phenotype observed in the respective species (e.g., dark eye color, large ears, spiky fins), 2) another naturally occurring phenotype observed in the same species (e.g., light eye color, small ears, smooth fins), 3) a blend of the two naturally occurring phenotypes (e.g., combination of the light and dark eye color, medium sized ears, combination of the smooth and spiky fins), 4) a co-dominant expression of the two naturally occurring phenotypes (e.g., one light eye color and one dark eye color, one large ear and one small ear, one spiky fin and one smooth fin) and 5) an unobserved/unnatural phenotype (e.g., purple eye color, ears resembling a different species, fin texture resembling a different species). 2) Prediction Task: We tell participants that two animal parents had six offspring over their lifetime (3 males and 3 females), and that those offspring are all grown up now. Then, we ask the participant to select drawings of how they think the six offspring will look and why. The stimuli will contain six replicas per phenotype option. The phenotypic variants for the possible offspring are the same as the five discussed previously in the judgement task description. Our lesson will include a multi-generational genetic diagram, which details how eye color is passed down through generations in wolves. This lesson informs children that eye color is determined by a code in a baby’s cells. A baby’s code is made of half of its mom’s code and half of its dad’s code and the code can combine in many different ways, which is why babies can resemble their parents, but may also look a bit different from their parents. There are two types of diagrams that will be used in the lesson: Rich and Bland. The rich diagram depicts the wolves in a realistic manner. The bland diagram depicts the wolves with line drawings with sparse details. The diagrams are identical in every other respect. We are interested in which types of phenotypic variants children think are possible and whether their decisions change depending on whether parents have the same or different phenotypes. We are also interested in how these endorsements will change after our lesson intervention, as well as how far children will extend their knowledge of genetic inheritance (e.g., to a new trait/ unfamiliar species). The purpose of this study is to gauge children's knowledge about genetic inheritance and their acceptance of within-species variability. We also explore how these beliefs change with age. |
