A STUDY ON THE MACROSCOPIC TIME CONCEPT - UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' TIME IMAGES OF PAST EVOLUTION -

Abstract

Macroscopic times, like a million years or a billion years, are used in the teaching of evolution, but they were not studied satisfactorily, so, they were investigated in this study. Upper secondary school students were selected as subjects. Test items were selected from the history of evolution. The students were asked about how past items had taken place. The results showed that the students understood the sequence of items well. They indicated that the students could differentiate roughly Paleozonic Era, Mesozonic Era, Cenozonic Era and Recorded Era. But the students had two misunderstandings. (1) They underestimated the time length of evolution. (2) They overestimated the time length of Paleozonic Era, Mesozonic Era, Cenozonic Era and Recorded Era.