Reasoning Across Ontologically Distinct Levels: Students' Understandings of Molecular Genetics.

This article discusses the difficulty that students have in understanding molecular genetics. An analytical framework is presented to illustrate the mapping of this education across oniologically distinct levels and a physical level containing hierarchically organized biophysical entities such as proteins, cells and tissues. Studies in the article evaluate the perception that students have of this mapping process, which is far less constrained than the scientific understandings of the genetic information. Also evaluated is the perception that students have in regards to the different functions of proteins, their relationship to genes, and the role proteins have in mediating the effects of the genetic information.