Education Commons^™

Effects Of Student Ontological Position On Cognition Of Human Origins, Jeremy Ervin

Faculty Dissertations

In this study, the narratives from a hermeneutical dialectic cycle of three high school students were analyzed to understand the influences of ontological position on the learning of human origins. The interpretation of the narratives provides the reader an opportunity to consider the learning process from the perspective of worldview and conceptual change theories. Questions guiding this research include: Within a context of a worldview, what is the range of ontological positions among a high school AP biology class? To what extent does ontological position influence the learning of scientific concepts about human origins? If a student’s ontological position is …