#787: Organism-Level Ideas as Productive Resources in a Student’s Evolutionary Reasoning

We present a microgenetic analysis of an interview with a student, Charlie, whose thinking shifts between population-level and organism-level explanations for natural selection. Population-level explanations are typically considered correct, while organism-level explanations have been characterized as containing misconceptions. We argue that this case illustrates how organism-level ideas contributed to productive conceptual dynamics that ultimately supported Charlie in developing a more elaborated and integrated explanation for evolutionary change. Using a combination of knowledge analysis and interaction analysis, we propose that the interview dynamics—which established a shared framing of the conversation as focused on sensemaking—allowed Charlie to activate, examine, and ultimately integrate organism-level ideas into a more coherent explanation for natural selection.