All

What are you looking for?

All
Projects
Results
Organizations

Quick search

  • Projects supported by TA ČR
  • Excellent projects
  • Projects with the highest public support
  • Current projects

Smart search

  • That is how I find a specific +word
  • That is how I leave the -word out of the results
  • “That is how I can find the whole phrase”

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

The result's identifiers

  • Result code in IS VaVaI

    <a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11310%2F21%3A10437477" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11310/21:10437477 - isvavai.cz</a>

  • Result on the web

    <a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=hz0l9.pKqY" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=hz0l9.pKqY</a>

  • DOI - Digital Object Identifier

    <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12052-021-00158-8" target="_blank" >10.1186/s12052-021-00158-8</a>

Alternative languages

  • Result language

    angličtina

  • Original language name

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

  • Original language description

    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 &quot;Evolution Education Questionnaire&quot;, to assess evolution acceptance and knowledge, as well as influencing factors on evolution acceptance. Results We found that, despite European countries&apos; 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&apos;s affiliation, students&apos; 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.

  • Czech name

  • Czech description

Classification

  • Type

    J<sub>SC</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

  • CEP classification

  • OECD FORD branch

    50301 - Education, general; including training, pedagogy, didactics [and education systems]

Result continuities

  • Project

  • Continuities

    I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Others

  • Publication year

    2021

  • Confidentiality

    S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Data specific for result type

  • Name of the periodical

    Evolution: Education and Outreach

  • ISSN

    1936-6426

  • e-ISSN

  • Volume of the periodical

    14

  • Issue of the periodical within the volume

    1

  • Country of publishing house

    US - UNITED STATES

  • Number of pages

    21

  • Pages from-to

    17

  • UT code for WoS article

  • EID of the result in the Scopus database

    2-s2.0-85120171727