9554193 Stewart The development and revision of explanatory models and the articulation of theory and data each represents scientific problem solving. Our research addresses problem solving so conceived and extends previous genetics problem-solving research to evolutionary biology, including a study of the transfer of problem-solving heuristics. Research questions include: 1. What conceptual and heuristic knowledge do students employ to solve problems (use and revise explanatory models) in genetics? 2. Do students who have received instruction that makes explicit general problem-solving heuristics employ those heuristics to solve problems in evolution? Data to address these questions will include transcripts of audio tapes of: students as they solve problems: Teacher interactions with students during problem solving; classroom conferences in which students defend their problem solutions. Student's conceptual knowledge, problem-solving heuristics, interactions between the two, an changes in each during the development of the solution to a set of problems will be identified during the data analysis. The research is significant as it will extend problem-solving research to areas of science that are not highly axiomatized; contribute to theories of problem solving and to instructional development in which model revising is important: and demonstrate how evolutionary biology can be taught as a problem solving science.
