A survey of students' notions of body function as teleologic or mechanistic.

The objectives of this study were to determine 1) the relative degrees to which students' notions of physiological functions are teleologic or mechanistic in nature, 2) whether these notions differ between students in elementary and advanced-level physiology courses, and 3) whether the degree of teleologic vs. mechanistic thinking can be modified by direct discussion of this topic. A questionnaire that determined whether students thought about body functions in a teleologic (why) or mechanistic (how) manner was administered to the following categories of students: 1) a class of high school biology students, 2) classes of students taking elementary college-level physiology courses, and 3) college students in advanced physiology courses. Overall, there was an average 61% teleologic response among the various classes, and differences between the classes were not statistically significant (P greater than 0.05). To address objective 3, one of the classes was presented the questionnaire after being given a lecture on teleology vs. mechanistic approaches to body function. The average teleological response of this class was only 12%, a value significantly lower in comparison, by a one-way analysis of variance, to any of the other groups (P less than 0.0001). These results indicate that the students have a strong tendency to think of body functions in teleological terms and that this tendency can be modified on a short-term basis by a direct discussion (by an instructor) of teleologic vs. mechanistic thinking.