Exploring the factors related to acceptance of evolutionary theory among Turkish preservice biology teachers: Toward a more informative conceptual ecology for biological evolution

Deniz, Hasan; Donnelly, Lisa A.; Yılmaz, İrem

doi:10.1002/tea.20223

Cited by 173 publications

(210 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…± 1.483), which is at the lower cutoff for "high acceptance" as defined by Rutledge and Sadler (2007). Although high in comparison to other studies of college students (Deniz et al 2008;Rutledge and Sadler 2007), gifted high school students (Wiles and Alters 2011), and biology teachers (Rutledge and Warden 1999), this average MATE score is nearly identical to that found in a sample of patrons of a natural history museum in the same region (Barone et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 41%

“…Ethnicity, age, number of college science courses taken, interest in science, sex, and three of the religiosity measures ("My religion impacts my daily life", "I am a religious person", and frequency of church attendance) all have p-values in the full ANCOVA much higher than 0.10 (Additional file 1: Table S3). This underscores the importance of our approach; the methods used in most previous studies would find and report significance for parents' education levels (Deniz et al 2008), or sex (Grose and Simpson 1982) (or age or ethnicity) in acceptance of evolution; in our study, however, these relationships appear to be driven by underlying variation in other variables.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…Rutledge and Warden (2000) found that among high school teachers, knowledge of evolution was significantly correlated with acceptance of evolution (see also Deniz et al 2008;Glaze et al 2015). This link was also found in an undergraduate sample (Carter and Wiles 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…Deniz et al (2008) found thinking dispositions to be the most significant predictor of evolution acceptance in preservice biology teachers in Turkey. Sinatra et al (2003) found a measure of epistemological sophistication and a disposition towards actively open-minded thinking to be significantly correlated with acceptance of human evolution (but no relation was found for acceptance of animal evolution).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

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A multifactorial analysis of acceptance of evolution

2017

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Background: Despite decades of education reform efforts, the percent of the general US population accepting biological evolution as the explanation for the diversity of life has remained relatively unchanged over the past 35 years. Previous work has shown the importance of both educational and non-educational (sociodemographic and psychological) factors on acceptance of evolution, but has often looked at such factors in isolation. Our study is among the first attempts to model quantitatively how the unique influences of evolutionary content knowledge, religiosity, epistemological sophistication, and an understanding of the nature of science collectively predict an individual's acceptance or rejection of evolution.Results: Our study population had a high acceptance of evolution, with an average score of 77.17 (95% C.I. ± 1.483) on the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument. Our combined general linear model showed that, of the variables in our model, an understanding of the nature of science explained the greatest amount of variation in acceptance of evolution. This was followed in amount of variance explained by a measure of religiosity, openness to experience, religious denomination, number of biology courses previously taken, and knowledge of evolutionary biology terms. Conclusions:Understanding of the nature of science was the single most important factor associated with acceptance of evolution in our study and explained at least four times more variation than measures of evolutionary knowledge. This suggests that educational efforts to impact evolutionary acceptance should focus on increasing an understanding of the nature of science (which may be expected to have additional benefits towards generalized science denial). Additionally, our measure of epistemological sophistication had a unique, significant impact on acceptance of evolution. Both epistemological sophistication and an understanding of the nature of science are factors that might change throughout a liberal arts education, independent of the effect of direct evolutionary instruction.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 41%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

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A multifactorial analysis of acceptance of evolution

2017

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“…Some authors describe knowledge in philosophical terms as 'justified true belief ' that requires understanding and belief and/or acceptance (Abraham et al 2012;Cobern 2004;Sinatra et al 2003;Southerland et al 2001). Others equate knowledge solely with understanding, whether or not it is accompanied by adequate justifications or belief and/or acceptance (Carter and Wiles 2014;Deniz et al 2008).…”

Section: Belief Understanding Acceptance and Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Teleological reasoning, not acceptance of evolution, impacts students’ ability to learn natural selection

et al. 2017

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Background: How acceptance of evolution relates to understanding of evolution remains controversial despite decades of research. It even remains unclear whether cultural/attitudinal factors or cognitive factors have a greater impact on student ability to learn evolutionary biology. This study examined the influence of cultural/attitudinal factors (religiosity, acceptance of evolution, and parents' attitudes towards evolution) and cognitive factors (teleological reasoning and prior understanding of natural selection) on students' learning of natural selection over a semesterlong undergraduate course in evolutionary medicine.Method: Pre-post course surveys measured cognitive factors, including teleological reasoning and prior understanding of natural selection, and also cultural/attitudinal factors, including acceptance of evolution, parent attitudes towards evolution, and religiosity. We analyzed how these measures influenced increased understanding of natural selection over the semester. Results:After controlling for other related variables, parent attitude towards evolution and religiosity predicted students' acceptance of evolution, but did not predict students' learning gains of natural selection over the semester. Conversely, lower levels of teleological reasoning predicted learning gains in understanding natural selection over the course, but did not predict students' acceptance of evolution. Conclusions:Acceptance of evolution did not predict students' ability to learn natural selection over a semester in an evolutionary medicine course. However, teleological reasoning did impact students' ability to learn natural selection.

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Accepting, understanding, teaching, and learning (human) evolution: Obstacles and opportunities

Pobiner

2016

American J Phys Anthropol

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Questions about our origin as a species are universal and compelling. Evolution-and in particular human evolution-is a subject that generates intense interest across the world, evidenced by the fact that fossil and DNA discoveries grace the covers of major science journals and magazines as well as other popular print and online media. However, virtually all national polls indicate that the majority of Americans strongly reject biological evolution as a fact-based, well-tested, and robust understanding of the history of life. In the popular mind, no topic in all of science is more contentious or polarizing than evolution and media sources often only serve to magnify this polarization by covering challenges to the teaching of evolution. In the realm of teaching, debates about evolution have shaped textbooks, curricula, standards, and policy. Challenges to accepting and understanding evolution include mistrust and denial of science, cognitive obstacles and misconceptions, language and terminology, and a religious worldview, among others. Teachers, who are on the front lines of these challenges, must be armed with the tools and techniques to teach evolution in formal education settings across grades K-16 in a straightforward, thorough, and sensitive way. Despite the potentially controversial topic of human evolution, growing research is demonstrating that a pedagogical focus on human examples is an effective and engaging way to teach core concepts of evolutionary biology. Am J Phys Anthropol 159:S232-S274,

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Exploring the factors related to acceptance of evolutionary theory among Turkish preservice biology teachers: Toward a more informative conceptual ecology for biological evolution

Cited by 173 publications

References 54 publications

A multifactorial analysis of acceptance of evolution

A multifactorial analysis of acceptance of evolution

Teleological reasoning, not acceptance of evolution, impacts students’ ability to learn natural selection

Accepting, understanding, teaching, and learning (human) evolution: Obstacles and opportunities

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