Shifting barriers to the acceptance of evolution in an underrepresented student group

ABSTRACT

Threshold concepts can lead to higher discipline comprehension but may also lead to the formation of educational barriers. The acceptance of evolutionary theory, a threshold concept, may be impacted by barriers associated with a student's educational, religious, psychological, and social background. The objectives of this study were to examine the efficacy of teaching evolution online and to assess how educational barriers affect the acceptance of the theory. Pre- and post-semester surveys were distributed to students in a non-science major's online evolution course at a primarily minority-serving Catholic university to evaluate potential barriers and student's Measure of Acceptance of Evolution (MATE). MATE scores increased significantly by the end of the semester, suggesting that online platforms may be effective for evolution education. Learning barriers shifted during the semester: while reported religiosity remained unchanged, it was significantly correlated with MATE scores in the pre- but not post-surveys. Psychological and science understanding barriers were also significant predictors of MATE scores in the pre-survey, whereas only psychological and social barriers were significant in the post-survey. These results suggest that religiosity need not be impacted by evolution education and barriers associated with religiosity are not insurmountable and are reduced by the exposure to evolution education.

KEYWORDS:

• Evolution education
• MATE assessment
• evolution
• religion

Acknowledgements

We thank the faculty and staff from the university this study was conducted. We thank Drs. Kenneth Elgersma and Gerard Kyle for their consultation regarding study design and statistical analyses. We thank Dr. Adrian Castellanos for his comments on early drafts of this manuscript and for his help coding in R. We also wish to acknowledge the comments and suggestions regarding study design and figure aesthetics provided by Drs. Jessica Light and Michelle Lawing, as well as the students in their respective labs. This study is dedicated to the loving memory of Dr. Cary Guffey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).