Honke et al. (2015) Promoting transfer and mastery of evolution concepts with category construction

Abstract

The key goal of this research is to promote the development of accessible and transferrable conceptual knowledge. We hypothesize that the limitations of human, similarity- based retrieval can be overcome by focusing on teaching scientific principles as categories (Gentner & Kurtz, 2005; Bernardo, 1994; Blessing & Ross, 1996; Cummins, 1992). This paper reports on findings from two classroom experiments focused on a well-studied psychological task known as category construction (Imai & Garner, 1965, 1968; Medin, Wattenmaker, & Hampson, 1987). Historically, category construction techniques have been used as a means of assessing individuals’ knowledge after a learning activity (as opposed to using category construction for learning). Here we investigate the effectiveness of category construction as a tool for promoting individuals’ mastery of complex concepts and their ability to apply this knowledge in distinct domains.