TY - JOUR

T1 - Organising Levels of Organisation for Biology Education: A Systematic Review of Literature

AU - Schneeweiß, Niklas

AU - Gropengießer, Harald

N1 - Funding information: Acknowledgments: We thank our colleagues of the Institute for Science Education of Leibniz Universität Hannover. The publication of this article was funded by the Open Access fund of Leibniz Universität Hannover. We thank our colleagues of the Institute for Science Education of Leibniz Universit?t Hannover. The publication of this article was funded by the Open Access fund of Leibniz Universit?t Hannover. Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

PY - 2019/9

Y1 - 2019/9

N2 - Many authors suggest an explicit reflection on the levels of organisation, based on known difficulties related to understanding biological systems. Yet, there is no scientific consensus on the characteristics of biological levels and the quality of their relationships. This review intends to present the state of the current discussion in order to establish an educational argumentation as a basis for the development of learning environments and teaching experiments in biology education. For this purpose, we conducted a systematic literature review. Three databases (BIOSIS, ERIC, Fachportal-Pädagogik) were searched for literature on levels of organisation. The papers were analysed by means of a qualitative content analysis based on the following research questions: (1) Which levels of organisation do the authors name? (2) How do the authors describe the levels of organisation? (3) How do the authors describe the relationship between different levels of organisation? (4) How do the authors describe the challenges of these levels for biological education? (5) How do the authors describe the benefit of these levels for biological education? Based on the results, we propose a system of levels that features the concept of zooming-in and makes the relationships between the levels explicit.

AB - Many authors suggest an explicit reflection on the levels of organisation, based on known difficulties related to understanding biological systems. Yet, there is no scientific consensus on the characteristics of biological levels and the quality of their relationships. This review intends to present the state of the current discussion in order to establish an educational argumentation as a basis for the development of learning environments and teaching experiments in biology education. For this purpose, we conducted a systematic literature review. Three databases (BIOSIS, ERIC, Fachportal-Pädagogik) were searched for literature on levels of organisation. The papers were analysed by means of a qualitative content analysis based on the following research questions: (1) Which levels of organisation do the authors name? (2) How do the authors describe the levels of organisation? (3) How do the authors describe the relationship between different levels of organisation? (4) How do the authors describe the challenges of these levels for biological education? (5) How do the authors describe the benefit of these levels for biological education? Based on the results, we propose a system of levels that features the concept of zooming-in and makes the relationships between the levels explicit.

KW - biology

KW - systems thinking

KW - levels of organisation

KW - review of literature

KW - teaching

KW - Biology

KW - Levels of organisation

KW - Review of literature

KW - Systems thinking

KW - Teaching

KW - Teaching experiments

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070834975&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/educsci9030207

DO - 10.3390/educsci9030207

M3 - Article

VL - 9

JO - Education Sciences

JF - Education Sciences

SN - 2227-7102

IS - 3

M1 - 207

ER -