Collaboration can be an effective means of learning, but is it effective in domains where collaborators rely on conceptually distinct forms of reasoning? We explored this question in the domain of evolution, where many students construe evolution as the uniform transformation of all members of a population rather than the selective survival and reproduction of a subset. College undergraduates (n = 174) completed an assessment of their evolutionary reasoning by themselves (pretest) and with a partner (dyad test); some (n = 44) also completed an assessment several months later (posttest). Higher-scoring partners pulled up lower-scoring partners to achieve a dyad score equivalent to the higher-scoring partner's pretest score. Lower-scoring partners retained a score boost when working alone at posttest. These findings indicate that students who hold different views of evolution are able to collaborate effectively, and such collaboration yields long-term learning gains for partners with lower levels of understanding.

中文翻译：

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通过合作学习进化

协作可以是一种有效的学习方式，但在协作者依赖概念上不同形式的推理的领域中它是否有效？我们在进化领域探讨了这个问题，许多学生将进化解释为群体所有成员的统一转变，而不是一个子集的选择性生存和繁殖。大学本科生 (n = 174) 自己完成了对进化推理的评估（预测试）和与合作伙伴（二元测试）的评估；一些（n = 44）也在几个月后完成了评估（后测）。得分较高的伙伴拉起得分较低的伙伴，以达到与得分较高的伙伴的预测试分数相等的二元分数。在后测中单独工作时，得分较低的合作伙伴保留了分数提升。