The meaning students attribute to genome metaphors

Abstract

There are several reasons why people should undergo genetic tests. To make informed decisions, people should have a basic knowledge in genetics, what is taught at high school. Genetics is often hard to understand, and for that reason metaphors are used to explain the genome. The blueprint and the recipe metaphors are often used and also both determined as excessively deterministic. Metaphors are also pluripotent and used different in different contexts. For that reason, in this research we studied how students use genome metaphors, and how they use these metaphors in different contexts. In total, twelve students of four different schools were interviewed.

This research showed that there is a great difference in the use of metaphors between students: only 21 percent of the comparisons that are made between genome and blueprint consist of one unique comparison by several students, without another comparison. Besides that, there were many incorrect comparisons: the input component (genome, blueprint and recipe) was compared with the translated component (organism, building, meal). Comparisons were also made between parts of the genome and the metaphor, which contained different characteristics. When students were asked to the view they had about the genome and the metaphor, it seemed that students did not always combine genome characteristics with characteristics of the metaphor. This shows that when students have a deterministic meaning of the metaphor, they do not immediately have a deterministic view of the genome.

When students were asked to the involvement of the genome and environment on their life and in different contexts, and how much the metaphors fitted with the different contexts, it appeared that the greater the influence of the environment, the less the metaphors fits. This shows that the meaning that students attribute to genome metaphors depends on the context in which it is used.

This research shows that the use of metaphors does not always lead to better understanding of the genome. However, metaphors can be used in science education, for example to test the preconceptions of students about the genome.