An Investigation of Student Understanding and Acceptance of Evolution

Evolution is central to biology education and yet, it is often one of the most misunderstood and controversial topics that biology educators must teach. Research spanning the last four decades has shown that students continue to struggle, even with direct instruction, to understand the process of evolution by natural selection. In my first chapter, I found that students enrolled in non-majors geology course did not increase in their understanding of evolution, even after instruction. This followed similar findings from research occurring over 30 years in the past. Discipline-based education researchers have theorized that students' persistent difficulties understanding evolution may stem from the conceptual challenges inherent to complex biological systems. To meet the needs of biology instructors, I developed a new teaching tool, a rapid response rubric (3R: Evolution), to provide more opportunities for formative assessment and feedback in large-enrollment courses. I found the 3R: Evolution provided direct and actionable feedback, allowing students to modify their understanding of evolution in large-enrollment courses and exhibit large increases in their knowledge from pre- to post-assessment. However, knowledge of evolution is not the only challenge to biology education: students must also accept evolution. A lack of evolution acceptance can emerge from various social, cultural, and epistemological factors including religiosity and regional impacts, knowledge of the nature of science, openness to experience, and evolution exposure. In this work, I present a path analysis to illuminate the direct causal relationships from these individual factors to evolution acceptance. I found that while religiosity was the largest casual predictor of acceptance, the other chosen factors, including knowledge of evolution, were all significant predictors of evolution acceptance. Even though evolution remains a difficult topic, this work shows that students can increase both their understanding and acceptance of evolution, using new curriculum and increasing exposure to evolution content across their school career. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]