Evolution Education Questionnaire on Acceptance and Knowledge (EEQ) - Standardised and ready-to-use protocols to measure acceptance of evolution and knowledge about evolution in an international context

Beniermann, Anna; Kuschmierz, Paul; Pinxten, Rianne; Aivelo, Tuomas; Bohlin, Gustav; Brennecke, Julia; Cebesoy, Ümran Betül; Cvetković, Dragana; Đorđević, Mirko; Dvořáková, Radka Marta; Futo, Momir; Nicoleta, Geamana; Korfiatis, Konstantinos; Lendvai, Ádám Z.; Μόγιας, Αθανάσιος; Paolucci, Stefania; Petersson, Maria; Pietrzak, Barbara; Porozovs, Juris; Realdon, Giulia; Savković, Uroš; Sofonea, Mircea T.; Šorgo, Andrej; Stermin, Alexandru N.; Torkar, Gregor; Uitto, Anna; Ben, Lucía Vázquez; Graf, Dittmar

doi:10.5281/zenodo.4554742

Cited by 8 publications

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“…Answers are quantified by values from 1 (absolute rejection of evolution) to 5 (absolute acceptance of evolution). Total scores range between 8 (absolute rejection of evolution) and 40 (absolute acceptance of evolution) (Beniermann et al 2021b). This is in accordance with our previous definition of the construct 'acceptance of evolution. '…”

Section: Acceptance Of Evolutionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…For the purpose of this study, we used parts of the "Evolution Education Questionnaire (EEQ)" (Beniermann et al 2021b) which has been designed to assess acceptance of evolution, knowledge about evolution, and religious faith. Specifically, we analyzed the subscales KAEVO-A (Kuschmierz et al 2020a), ATEVO (Beniermann 2019), and PERF (Beniermann 2019) of the EEQ.…”

Section: Research Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike most instruments in this field of research (Kuschmierz et al 2020a)-these have been validated in the European context based on standards for educational and psychological testing (American Educational Research Association 1999), as discussed in the "Validity and reliability" section. Categories to enable the standardized interpretation of the results are available for all three instruments (Beniermann et al 2021b;Kuschmierz et al 2020a).…”

Section: Research Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Attitudes Towards Evolution scale (ATEVO; Beniermann 2019; Beniermann et al 2021b) is a five-point rating scale with eight items. Each item consists of a statement (e.g., "In my personal opinion, the animals and plants we know today have developed from earlier species. ")…”

Section: Acceptance Of Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to address these diverse groups, the ATEVO scale includes items on evolution of plants and animals as well as items with a focus on human evolution that are known to be harder to accept (Barnes et al 2019). This approach is especially useful when surveying the partly rather secular samples from different European countries (Beniermann et al 2021b).…”

Section: Acceptance Of Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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European first-year university students accept evolution but lack substantial knowledge about it: a standardized European cross-country assessment

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Background Investigations of evolution knowledge and acceptance and their relation are central to evolution education research. Ambiguous results in this field of study demonstrate a variety of measuring issues, for instance differently theorized constructs, or a lack of standardized methods, especially for cross-country comparisons. In particular, meaningful comparisons across European countries, with their varying cultural backgrounds and education systems, are rare, often include only few countries, and lack standardization. To address these deficits, we conducted a standardized European survey, on 9200 first-year university students in 26 European countries utilizing a validated, comprehensive questionnaire, the “Evolution Education Questionnaire”, to assess evolution acceptance and knowledge, as well as influencing factors on evolution acceptance. Results We found that, despite European countries’ different cultural backgrounds and education systems, European first-year university students generally accept evolution. At the same time, they lack substantial knowledge about it, even if they are enrolled in a biology-related study program. Additionally, we developed a multilevel-model that determines religious faith as the main influencing factor in accepting evolution. According to our model, knowledge about evolution and interest in biological topics also increase acceptance of evolution, but to a much lesser extent than religious faith. The effect of age and sex, as well as the country’s affiliation, students’ denomination, and whether or not a student is enrolled in a biology-related university program, is negligible. Conclusions Our findings indicate that, despite all their differences, most of the European education systems for upper secondary education lead to acceptance of evolution at least in university students. It appears that, at least in this sample, the differences in knowledge between countries reflect neither the extent to which school curricula cover evolutionary biology nor the percentage of biology-related students in the country samples. Future studies should investigate the role of different European school curricula, identify particularly problematic or underrepresented evolutionary concepts in biology education, and analyze the role of religious faith when teaching evolution.

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Section: Acceptance Of Evolutionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Research Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Research Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Acceptance Of Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Acceptance Of Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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European first-year university students accept evolution but lack substantial knowledge about it: a standardized European cross-country assessment

et al. 2021

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Promoting evolution acceptance through philosophical dialogue in the classroom

Bernhard,

Wilhelm,

Helbling

2023

International Journal of Science Education

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Promoting scientific literacy in evolution through citizen science

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Evolutionary understanding is central to biology. It is also an essential prerequisite to understanding and making informed decisions about societal issues such as climate change. Yet, evolution is generally poorly understood by civil society and many misconceptions exist. Citizen science, which has been increasing in popularity as a means to gather new data and promote scientific literacy, is one strategy through which people could learn about evolution. However, despite the potential for citizen science to promote evolution learning opportunities, very few projects implement them. In this paper, we make the case for incorporating evolution education into citizen science, define key learning goals, and suggest opportunities for designing and evaluating projects in order to promote scientific literacy in evolution.

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Evolution Education Questionnaire on Acceptance and Knowledge (EEQ) - Standardised and ready-to-use protocols to measure acceptance of evolution and knowledge about evolution in an international context

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

European first-year university students accept evolution but lack substantial knowledge about it: a standardized European cross-country assessment

European first-year university students accept evolution but lack substantial knowledge about it: a standardized European cross-country assessment

Promoting evolution acceptance through philosophical dialogue in the classroom

Promoting scientific literacy in evolution through citizen science

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