Evolution & Religious Beliefs: A Survey of Pennsylvania High School Teachers

I Won't Teach Evolution; It's against My Religion. And Now for the Rest of the Story...

“…The correlation between professed religious conviction and lack of acceptance of evolutionary theory seems to hold true for biology teachers as well. Aguillard (1999) and Osif (1997) conducted research in Louisiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and found that biology teachers who rejected the theory of evolution often endorsed the teaching of creationism. Additionally, the biology teachers who rejected evolution often professed their rejection based upon religious convictions.…”

“…Six weeks after the conclusion of the initial mailings, the returned surveys were analyzed for correlations between biology teachers' understanding of the nature of science, understanding of the theory of evolution, acceptance of the theory of evolution, degree of religious conviction, and presentation of the theory of evolution in their biology courses. The 90-question survey represented a compilation of previous survey questions used by Rutledge and Warden (2000), as well as Osif (1997), and new material added specifically for this study. The first three sections of the survey were presented in near identical form to the Rutledge and Warden survey and used Likert scaling and multiple choice questions to assess biology teachers' acceptance of evolution, understanding of evolution, and understanding of the nature of science (Rutledge & Warden, 2000).…”

The Transformation of Scientific Knowledge Concerning Evolution into the Content of the Curriculum and its Potential to Create a Conceptual Change in the Conceptual Structures of Pupils

“…In addition to the lay public, both pupils and teachers have an insufficient knowledge of evolution. A difference in knowledge and evolutionary attitudes was not confirmed among secondary school students studying and notstudying biology (Šorgo et al, 2014), and there was no confirmation of a difference in an understanding of the importance of evolutionary education among biology teachers and English language teachers (Osif, 1997). The same results were found by Nehm, Kim, and Sheppard (2009), who compared the attitudes of secondary school biology teachers and humanities teachers to evolution.…”

Understanding and acceptance of biological evolution and the nature of science: Studies on university faculty

“…Lebanon (Dagher and BouJaoude, 1997), freshman biology majors in the United States (Verhey, 2005), biology majors in Scotland (Downie and Barron, 2000), freshman and senior biology and genetics majors (Rice et al, 2011), biology textbooks (Aleixandre, 1994), high school student teachers (Zuzovsky, 1994), and high school biology teachers (Moore and Kraemer, 2005;Osif, 1997;Tatina, 1989;Van Koevering and Stiehl, 1989 Approximately 50% of the students held attitudes that would be considered creationist (Verhey, 2005).…”