Figure - available from: Evolution: Education and Outreach
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Two common phylogenetic tree styles with equivalent branching patterns: a diagonal and b bracket (Dees et al. 2014; adapted from Gregory 2008)
Source publication
Background
Phylogenetic trees have become increasingly essential across biology disciplines. Consequently, learning about phylogenetic trees has become an important component of biology education and an area of interest for biology education research. Construction tasks, in which students generate phylogenetic trees from some type of data, are ofte...
Citations
... Undergraduates are typically introduced to concepts of tree-thinking (e.g., terminology and tree topology, parsimony, trait evolution, relatedness) in introductory courses and it is often assumed in upper-level courses that this level of instruction is sufficient for students to interpret evolutionary trees in texts and primary literature. However, research has shown that even advanced biology undergraduates still struggle with a range of misconceptions about the building and interpretation of evolutionary trees (highlighted in Table 1; Baum et al. 2005;Baum and Offner 2008;Blacquiere et al. 2020;Dees et al. 2014;Dees and Momsen 2016;Gregory 2008;Halverson 2011;Lents Page 2 of 11 Firneno Jr et al. Evolution: Education and Outreach (2023) 16:13 et al. 2010;Meir et al. 2007;Meisel 2010;Novick and Catley 2003;Sandvik 2008). ...
The theory and practice of evolutionary tree-thinking is pervasive through many scientific fields and is a critical component of biological literacy. Many elements of tree-thinking are introduced early in undergraduate biology education. However, basic concepts are often not revisited/reinforced and are assumed to have been fully conceptually grasped in upper-level courses and beyond. Here, we present a project-based activity that we developed to aid upper-level biology students to learn, conceptualize, and practice tree-thinking. This approach allows them to identify the misconceptions that they may have about tree-thinking, while reinforcing the theories and concepts that they may have encountered in introductory courses. It also integrates several pedagogical styles (instructor-led and student-centered), along with an organismal case study to make concepts concrete and realistic to students.
... Visual representations are essential for communicating multiple perspectives of deep time. For example, much research has explored students' understanding of phylogenetic trees (Blacquiere et al. 2020;Blacquiere and Hoese 2016;Dees and Momsen 2016;Thanukos 2010), a paramount form of visual representation related to evolutionary time. Despite these contributions, to our knowledge, no diagnostic tests have yet been specifically developed to assess students' knowledge of the visual communication of DET. ...
Understanding deep evolutionary time is crucial for biology education and for conceptualizing evolutionary history. Although such knowledge might help citizens contemplate their actions in the context of human existence, understanding deep evolutionary time is a demanding cognitive endeavor for students. The enormous magnitudes of evolutionary time are often visually communicated through phylograms and timelines. Given the importance of understanding evolutionary time in various scientific domains at large, there is a need for tools to gauge students’ knowledge about visually communicated deep evolutionary time. In response, we describe the design and validation of an instrument to measure knowledge about the visual representation of deep evolutionary time. Development, expert panel evaluation, and piloting of an initial 14 questions with 139 respondents resulted in a 10-item multiple-choice questionnaire. Subsequent collection and analysis of 212 responses validated the 10-item Deep Evolutionary Time Visual Instrument (DET-Vis). Identification of a single factor suggests a unidimensional construct that represents knowledge about the visual communication of deep evolutionary time. A Cronbach’s alpha of 0.73 yielded an acceptable internal consistency of the instrument. The items of the instrument discriminate well with discrimination coefficients between 0.25 and 0.53. The instrument is of moderate difficulty with difficulty indices ranging from 0.56 to 0.81. The seven-step methodological design and validation procedure of this study yielded a unidimensional, valid, and reliable ten-item deep evolutionary time visual test instrument. The instrument items probe both procedural and declarative aspects of the construct that could warrant future psychometric exploration. Use of DET-Vis in pedagogical practice could help support the teaching of deep evolutionary time at upper secondary and undergraduate levels.
... In evolutionary biology, chief among numerous topics is the concept of phylogenetic trees which are visual representations of taxonomic relationships of different organisms in the form of branching diagrams (Baum & Offner, 2015;Dees & Momsen, 2016;Novick & Catley, 2007). They are considered primary tools that evolutionary biologists use to convey evolutionary patterns and shared characteristics of organisms (Baum et al., 2005). ...
... Unless students can effectively read phylogenetic trees and correctly interpret them in the light of taxonomic relationships by themselves, any instructional methods would be considered inappropriate (Baum & Offner, 2015;Baum et al., 2005;Omland et al., 2008;Young et al., 2013). The rationale for this learning goal is that phylogenetic trees do necessitate not only biological understanding but also systematic, logical, and computational thinking skills, which are essential for 21 st -century learners (Dees & Momsen, 2016). ...
... The ability to draw a phylogenetic tree of 20 familiar taxa as a result of the learning activities was investigated among 160 introductory-level biology students who exhibited significant improvement in their ability to draw phylogenetic trees properly; nevertheless, there was no improvement in their ability to portray the evolutionary relationships between the group of taxa accurately. In addition, Dees and Momsen (2016) explored the usefulness of textbook-based reading, reading quizzes, multiple-choice questions, and letter cards on phylogenetic trees. The activity served 88 students in an introductory biology course at various stages in their academic program (24% freshmen, 33% sophomores, 18% juniors, and 25% seniors). ...
p style="text-align: justify;">Understanding phylogenetic trees representing evolutionary relationships of living organisms is essential in school biology. Traditional instructions based on lectures and textbooks with pictorial presentations have been proven ineffective to promote students’ understanding of the concept. This study, therefore, developed a game-based learning activity called the VERT card game to enhance students’ learning of the phylogenetic taxonomy of chordates. The VERT card game was designed to lay the foundation for different characteristics of chordate classes, as well as to allow students to construct and interpret their evolutionary relationships based on the phylogenetic tree. The effectiveness of the VERT card game was verified by a pre-test and post-test design with 109 middle school students in Thailand. The statistical result revealed that students’ mean scores increased significantly in the post-test, compared to the pre-test, indicating their improved understanding. In addition, after participating in the learning activity, the student participants were found to increase their self-efficacy to learn evolutionary biology statistically. Also, it showed positive views towards the usefulness of the developed card game as a large number of them expressed that they would like to use it for their lesson reviews and wished to have this form of learning activity in other topics in biology.</p
... In one study, museum visitors interviewed on exiting an exhibit on evolution, in which various such phylogenetic trees were on prominent display, were still more likely to attribute creationist origins to human beings than they were to non-human organisms (Evans et al. 2010). While certain major biology textbooks have kept pace with research recommendations and have begun using bracket trees (e.g., Freeman 2011;Raven et al. 2014), diagonal trees remain prevalent in various other imagery used in academic settings, including assignments, tests, and examinations (Dees and Momsen 2016). ...
... In a more recent study, Dees and Momsen (2016) asked students in an introductory biology course to construct phylogenetic trees, and found that students favored constructing diagonal trees over bracket ones. Yet, Dees et al. (2017) found that students not only interpret, but also construct bracket trees more accurately than diagonal ones, which suggests that their choice of representation may actually hinder their learning. ...
Biologists use tree diagrams to illustrate phylogenetic relationships among species. However, both novices and experts are prone to misinterpret this notational form. A difficulty with reasoning with cladograms is that intuitive narrative conceptions of evolution as a linear progression interfere with perceiving the hierarchical relationships that tree diagrams are intended to convey. We challenge the use of standard cladograms to teach phylogenetic reasoning and attempt to disentangle the effects of content beliefs, conceptual metaphors, and visual structure. We explain how and why students misinterpret cladograms and investigate the effects of alternative, more intuitive representations and approaches. Through clinical interviews with 24 undergraduate students. Study 1 describes students’ invented representations for depicting the concept of relatedness and investigates the impacts of recontextualizing their representational activities within non-evolutionary contexts. Study 2 examines the effects on students’ reasoning with the standard cladogram after they first invent a diagram of their own. Findings from our mixed quantitative and qualitative analyses display the range of representational resources that students bring to the task of reasoning about relatedness. They suggest potential value in building upon such representations when teaching novices to reason about phylogenies. We observed that the quality of students’ reasoning differed depending on whether students invented a representation, what kind they invented, and in what context. While some findings are promising, others reaffirm the powerful influence of Gestalt perceptual processes on students’ misinterpretations of these difficult, but critical scientific diagrams. We end by discussing implications for instructors and designers.
... In fact, creativity is a key element for developing many possibilities and proposals (hypotheses) of phylogenetic trees based on evidence in a rational and reasonable way. Additionally, co-constructing phylogenetic trees is a collaborative and cooperative activity in which the scientific argumentation of experts from different fields (e.g., evolution, phylogenetics, systematics) is vital not only in the creation process but also in the critical peer review before being accepted by the scientific community (Dees and Momsen 2016;Young et al. 2013). The problem is that these characteristics of NOS have received little attention in undergraduate biology courses up to now. ...
... Tree thinking is an integral part of modern evolutionary biology and a critical component of biological education (Dees and Momsen 2016;Dees et al. 2014;Gregory 2008;Kong et al. 2016;Sandvik 2008). Moreover, expertise in tree thinking is required for solving problems in evolutionary biology and systematics (Halverson et al. 2011). ...
... Kampourakis (2017, p. 202) asked "Does anyone during their undergraduate studies talk to university students about the nature of science?" Arguably, in this study, stage 1 contributed to helping the students face the university science education challenges underlying Kampourakis's (2017) question. This contribution is supported by the fact that we implemented stage 1 in a typical introductory biology course similar to most of the university courses around the world (Dees and Momsen 2016;Meisel 2010;Schussler and Bautista 2012;Wieman 2017;Young et al. 2013). The main teaching and learning actions in this course focused merely on students' acquisition of scientific conceptual contents. ...
Contrary to the situation at primary, middle, and secondary school levels, university science courses provide students with very few opportunities to reflect upon the nature of science (NOS). The first goal of this study was to provide evidence that the co-construction of evolutionary trees, an important component of university biology education, can be used as a platform to introduce undergraduates to some aspects of NOS, such as the importance of (1) hypothesis, (2) human creativity, and (3) cooperation and collaboration in the development of scientific knowledge. The second goal was to provide evidence that this approach could be used without sacrificing student mastery of the drawing of phylogenetic trees in a scientific and reasonable way. The data was derived from 68 undergraduates’ (39 females and 29 males, 17–22 years old) written responses and audio and video recordings in a university biology course in Colombia. The findings show that the co-construction of phylogenetic trees can offer potential contributions to the introduction of undergraduates to some aspects of NOS and the promotion of their understanding of these visual representations. This study contributes to the development of a research-based university science education that can inform the design of a NOS curriculum for higher education.
... Student responses to construction tasks were coded for accuracy as correct, adequate, or incorrect using a published rubric (Dees and Momsen, 2016). Phylogenetic trees that included one or more major errors, such as incorrect relatedness and incorrect traits, were considered incorrect. ...
... Thus, when resulting phylogenetic trees for construction tasks are not known in advance, the diagonal style is simpler and much faster for trial-and-error approaches. We hypothesize that simplicity and speed are the primary reasons why students consistently preferred to construct diagonal phylogenetic trees when allowed to use the style of their choice during this study and two previous investigations (Dees and Momsen, 2016;Dees et al., 2017). Therefore, the speed and ease of using the diagonal style for construction tasks may have led students to inadvertently include more minor errors (i.e., sloppiness). ...
Phylogenetic trees have become increasingly important across the life sciences, and as a result, learning to interpret and reason from these diagrams is now an essential component of biology education. Unfortunately, students often struggle to understand phylogenetic trees. Style (i.e., diagonal or bracket) is one factor that has been observed to impact how students interpret phylogenetic trees, and one goal of this research was to investigate these style effects across an introductory biology course. In addition, we investigated the impact of instruction that integrated diagonal and bracket phylogenetic trees equally. Before instruction, students were significantly more accurate with the bracket style for a variety of interpretation and construction tasks. After instruction, however, students were significantly more accurate only for construction tasks and interpretations involving taxa relatedness when using the bracket style. Thus, instruction that used both styles equally mitigated some, but not all, style effects. These results inform the development of research-based instruction that best supports student understanding of phylogenetic trees.
... Phylogenetic used by researchers to answer fundamental questions about the history and diversity of life on earth and applied by the researchers, such as in the field of human epidemiology, antibiotic resistance, artificial selection for the domestication of animals and plants [6] [7]. Therefore, studying about phylogenetic trees has become an important component in the biology education and an interesting area for biology education research [8]. The ability to understand and make sense of phylogenetic trees (referred to as cladistics thinking/tree thinking) is an important skill for biology students [9]. ...
The Phylogenetic tree is a visual representation depicts a hypothesis about the evolutionary relationship among taxa. Evolutionary experts use this representation to evaluate the evidence for evolution. The phylogenetic tree is currently growing for many disciplines in biology. Consequently, learning about the phylogenetic tree has become an important part of biological education and an interesting area of biology education research. Skill to understanding and reasoning of the phylogenetic tree, (called tree thinking) is an important skill for biology students. However, research showed many students have difficulty in interpreting, constructing, and comparing among the phylogenetic tree, as well as experiencing a misconception in the understanding of the phylogenetic tree. Students are often not taught how to reason about evolutionary relationship depicted in the diagram. Students are also not provided with information about the underlying theory and process of phylogenetic. This study aims to investigate the initial ability of undergraduate students in understanding and reasoning of the phylogenetic tree. The research method is the descriptive method. Students are given multiple choice questions and an essay that representative by tree thinking elements. Each correct answer made percentages. Each student is also given questionnaires. The results showed that the undergraduate students' initial ability in understanding and reasoning phylogenetic tree is low. Many students are not able to answer questions about the phylogenetic tree. Only 19 % undergraduate student who answered correctly on indicator evaluate the evolutionary relationship among taxa, 25% undergraduate student who answered correctly on indicator applying concepts of the clade, 17% undergraduate student who answered correctly on indicator determines the character evolution, and only a few undergraduate student who can construct the phylogenetic tree.
This study aims to collect and analyze the data needed for the development of ICT-based teaching materials in evolution courses on phylogeny topic. The methods used are systematic reviews and surveys. Based on the results of a systematic review, it can be concluded that the trend of research on evolution courses on phylogeny topic in scientific articles published in 2015-2021 is the mastery of tree thinking skills. The teaching materials developed to support the mastery of tree thinking skills are booklets, modules, and game cards. Based on the results of the survey, it can be concluded that the majority of students prefer to use smartphones instead of laptops to find and study evolution lecture materials and only a small percentage of students who have obstacles to accessing the internet both in the classroom and outside campus. The highest percentage of electronic teaching materials that students like the most are more diverse teaching materials. This need analysis provides information that can be used to develop ICT-based teaching materials on phylogeny topic
The Model of the Use of Evolutionary Trees (MUET)-curricular module that systematically and comprehensively introduces the learning of evolutionary trees for the lower-level college students was developed and implemented in an introductory organismal biology laboratory course at a mid-size, doctoral degree-granting institution. A quasi-experimental, nonrandomised control group, pretest–posttest research design was used to assess students' improvement of their tree-thinking ability. In this study, the students in the MUET-curricular module were the experimental group (N = 174) and the students in the traditional curricular module were the control group (N = 170). Paired t-test results revealed a statistically significant increase in students' tree-thinking ability in the MUET-curricular module (t(173) = −4.38; p < 0.001). Wilcoxon signed rank test results demonstrated a statistically significant increase in students' self-reported perceptions of their tree-thinking ability in the cognitive dimension in the MUET-curricular module (z = −5.68, p < 0.01, r = −0.32). Results show that the MUET-curricular module can be used in the introductory biology contexts as an effective teaching resource in the teaching and learning of tree-thinking.
