ERIC Number: EJ1156826
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9266
EISSN: N/A
Changes in Acceptance of Evolution in a College-Level General Education Course
Grossman, W. Eric; Fleet, Christine M.
Journal of Biological Education, v51 n4 p328-335 2017
Evolutionary theory is central to the biological sciences, and to critical aspects of everyday life, and yet a significant proportion of Americans reject evolution. Our study sets out to examine the role of a second year college general education course in affecting students' acceptance of evolution. We report three years of data using the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument, and show that students make small and sometimes statistically significant gains in acceptance over the course of a semester. We found no evidence that including evolution topics in coursework caused an overall decrease in acceptance of evolution. We suggest that increased coursework on evolution topics, especially using interactive teaching methods, may increase acceptance of evolution.
Descriptors: Evolution, Science Instruction, College Science, Theories, Attitude Change, Student Attitudes, Beliefs, Adoption (Ideas), College Students, Course Content, Student Surveys, Pretests Posttests, Biology, Scores, Statistical Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Virginia; Tennessee; North Carolina; Kentucky
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A