Michel Ferrari

The Nature of Naive Explanations of Natural Selection

Unlike some pivotal ideas in the history of science, the basic notion of natural selection is remarkably simple and so one might expect most students to easily grasp the basic principles of the Darwinian theory; yet many students nevertheless have difficulty understanding Darwinian evolution. We suggest that misconceptions about natural selection arise from mistaken categorization. Our thesis for explaining students’ failure to understand this concept or evolution in general is not that they necessarily fail to understand individual Darwinian principles; rather, they often fail to understand the ontological features of equilibration processes, of which evolution is one instance. They thus attribute the evolutionary process in general, and natural selection in particular, with event‐like properties. For example, naive students appear to focus on the idea of survival of the fittest, but embed this idea within an event ontology that involves actors struggling to overcome obstacles and achieve goals. Results ...

Computer-related attitudes and actions of teacher candidates

This study investigated the computer-related attitudes of 56 preservice teachers who were in a program training to teach either secondary school or primary school. It also examined outcomes from a challenging computer task. Primarily we were looking for gender and program effects, but were also interested in the relationship between self-reported beliefs and actual outcomes. No gender differences were found for any of the computer attitudes or for outcomes from the computer task. Regarding program effects, participants training to teach at the secondary level had higher computer self-efficacy, and were less likely to predict that they would give up or avoid a challenging computer task than were elementary teacher-candidates. However, they were not more successful on the computer task. Finally, computer attitudes were correlated with task-outcomes and the relationship was strongest when the attitude measures were closely tied to the task. These findings are discussed from the perspective of how they might impact on childrens learning.

A Triarchic Analysis of an Aptitude-Treatment Interaction

Summary: This article describes a triarchic analysis of an aptitude-treatment interaction in a college-level introductory-psychology course given to selected high-school students. Of the 326 total ...

What Makes a Good Writer? Differences in Good and Poor Writers' Self-Regulation of Writing.

What makes someone a good writer? To begin to answer this question, we compared the discourse knowledge and self-regulation of good and poor writers, as well as the quality and length of their final texts. Forty-eight junior-college students were given 50 minutes to write a text comparing Montreal (where they went to school) to another city of their choice. Results showed that poor writers were no more linear than good writers, and no less actively self-regulated their writing. However, good writers waited longer before beginning to write, and wrote texts that were more specifically comparative than did poor writers. Good writers also introduced fewer errors into their texts, more accurately evaluated the structure of their text, and produced longer texts of better quality.

Adapting Work Simulations for Schools.

Although computer-based simulations of workplaces are a promising way to prepare high school students for the world of work, it is unclear how many workplace simulations exist and how suitable they are for school-to-work programs. An extensive survey located 142 workplace simulations, many of which were not intended for the school-to-work market. Thirty-nine of the most promising simulations were obtained and analyzed to determine potential problems that might impede their use in school-to-work programs. These simulations were classified according to type (e.g., Skill simulations; Role-Playing simulations; and Strategy simulations) and then critiqued regarding common problems in using them (e.g., usability, learnability, content, and available teacher support). We indicate which problems are most common and what educators can do to overcome them. We close with a propositional analysis of two of the most promising workplace simulations that measures the job-specificity and implicitness of their content. We conclude that simulations can play an important role in school-to-work transition programs, even if not specifically designed for that purpose.

Phronesis, Sophia, and Hochma: Developing Wisdom in Islam and Judaism

Few empirical studies have examined phronesis and sophia (Hebrew, hochma) within particular religious and cultural groups. We interviewed 50 Muslims from Pakistan and 76 Jews from Canada about people and historical figures they consider wise. Also, the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale measured phronesis, the Foundational Values Scale measured sophia/hochma and the Life Satisfication Scale measured of quality of life. ANCOVAS found Jewish participants scored higher on phronesis, whereas Muslim participants scored higher on sophia/hochma. Children had less phronesis than adolescents or adults, whereas adults had more sophia/hochma than did children and adolescents. All participants were more likely to nominate men as wise.

Spirituality and Resilience in Children of War in Sri Lanka

This mixed-method study examined adaptive and maladaptive development in 62 children of war in Sri Lanka and 15 caregivers. Participants included war orphans and nonwar orphans from Buddhist and Christian orphanages, and a comparison group of children from intact families. Childrens measures included; risk and resilience indices, sand tray analysis (constructions and narrative), Stages of Faith Interview (adapted from Fowler, 1981) and a sentence completion task. Adult measures included the adapted Stages of Faith Interview and a sentence completion task. Scoring was completed by three raters, with interrater reliability over 90%. Findings from ANOVA and qualitative analyses found similar indicators of general risk and resilience as in previous research. However, contrary to previous studies, most orphans demonstrated inner peace and resilience after exposure to war. Resilient orphans identified Buddhist and Christian practices used to promote their faith, personal well-being, and sense of belonging. Overall, the children in both Buddhist and Christian orphanages were taught to value peace and compassion, even though they had been exposed to war. Nevertheless, lack of contact with biological parents posed a unique idiom of risk for some orphans.

Wundt, Vygotsky and Bandura: A cultural-historical science of consciousness in three acts

This article looks at three historical efforts to coordinate the scientific study of biological and cultural aspects of human consciousness into a single comprehensive theory of human development that includes the evolution of the human body, cultural evolution and personal development: specifically, the research programs of Wilhelm Wundt, Lev Vygotsky and Albert Bandura. The lack of historical relations between these similar efforts is striking, and suggests that the effort to promote cultural and personal sources of consciousness arises as a natural foil to an overemphasis on the biological basis of consciousness, sometimes associated with biological determinism.

The Many Faces of Wisdom: An Investigation of Cultural-Historical Wisdom Exemplars Reveals Practical, Philosophical, and Benevolent Prototypes.

Psychological research on wisdom has flourished in the last 30 years, much of it investigating laypeople’s implicit theories of wisdom. In three studies, we took an exemplar and prototype approach to implicit wisdom theories by asking participants to nominate one or more cultural-historical figures of wisdom. Study 1 revealed that individuals draw from a wide range of wisdom exemplars, with substantial agreement on the most iconic figures. In Study 2, multidimensional scaling analysis of exemplars revealed practical, philosophical, and benevolent prototypes; follow-up analyses indicated that prototypes differed in familiarity, likability, and perceived wisdom. Study 3 showed that individuals nominated exemplars from the practical prototype more frequently than from the philosophical and benevolent prototypes and that prototype nomination depended in part on nominator characteristics. These studies suggest that exemplar- and prototype-based implicit wisdom theories are consistent with explicit psychological theories of wisdom.

Epistemology and Science Education: Understanding the Evolution Vs. Intelligent Design Controversy

Evolution, and how to teach it, is perhaps the most controversial topic in American schools today. Biologists attest to the ubiquity of evolution, and assert that evolutionary explanations undergird their entire science and are of fundamental import. Yet, according to recent surveys (Gallup, 2008), 44% of Americans say they do not accept evolution in any form, and a shockingly small number, only 14%, say they believe in naturalistic evolution. A century and a half after the publication of the Origin of Species, there remains considerable cultural resistance to teaching this “controversial” subject in schools. Many explanations have been proffered for this disconnect between scientific consensus and citizen acceptance. Prominent among these explanations is that conflict with religious belief is the principal cause of objections to evolution (Numbers, 1992; Scott & Branch, 2003; Witham, 2002). While acknowledging the importance of religious objections, this chapter proceeds from the assumption that another major cause of rejection of evolution is the cognitive difficulty of understanding the evolutionary process. In this regard, we place evolution in a class of processes known as emergent processes that are notoriously difficult for people to understand (Centola, Wilensky & McKenzie 2000; Penner, 2000; Resnick & Wilensky, 1993; Wilensky, 2001; Wilensky & Centola, 2007; Wilensky & Resnick, 1999). Indeed the history of science is replete with scientific knowledge claims that came into sharp conflict with religious beliefs. To take one example, the claim that the earth is not flat but spherical, which was put forth by the Greeks and Indians before the advent of Christianity, was met with Christian religious objections in the Middle Ages as it conflicted with Biblical verses about “the four corners of the earth”. As late as the nineteenth century, even scientists such as William Carpenter (1871) and Samuel Rowbotham (1865) published proofs of a flat earth. Yet these objections eventually subsided. Now, except for a few fringe “Flat Earthers”, religious and non-religious alike accept the spherical earth and are not bothered by the “four corners”. How did this change in beliefs come about? Major factors in fostering this change of attitude were new technologies that enabled us to view the earth from afar and other celestial bodies from up-close. Those of us old enough to have been conscious in 1965 -how can we forget the first photograph of the earth taken by Apollo 17 from space and published in Life magazine?