The concept of natural selection serves as a foundation for understanding diverse biological concepts and has
broad applicability to other domains. However, we know little about students’ abilities to transfer (i.e. apply to
a new context or use generatively) this concept and the relation between students’ conceptual understanding
and transfer ability. Consequently, the purposes of this study were to describe the patterns of transfer displayed
by high school biology students learning about natural selection over time, evaluate their overall level of success
at transferring the concept across knowledge domains and examine the relation between conceptual understanding
and level of transfer of the concept. Transfer ability and conceptual understanding were assessed using
open-response items administered to 138 students in the United States. Based on the responses to these items,
we identified particular patterns of surface and deep-level transfer and found that deep-level transfer was
uncommon. Further, we found that deep-level transfer and conceptual understanding shared a small but significant
relation; surface-level transfer was unrelated. Based on these results, we recommend that teachers explicitly
focus on fostering transfer of the concept of natural selection and use specific teaching for transfer strategies, in
addition to teaching for conceptual understanding.

• High school biology students’ transfer of the concept of natural selection: a mixed-methods approach

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