Changes in Acceptance of Evolution and Associated Factors during a Year of Introductory Biology: The Shifting Impacts of Biology Knowledge, Politics, Religion, Demographics, and Understandings of the Nature of Science

Abstract

Recent research has identified many factors influencing student acceptance of biological evolution, but few of these factors have been measured in a longitudinal context of changing knowledge and acceptance of evolution over a period of instruction. This study investigates factors previously associated with evolution acceptance as well as other potential factors among students over the course of a year-long majors and non-majors introductory biology sequence at a private, research-intensive university in the northeastern United States. Acceptance of evolution was measured using the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument, and other factors were measured using well-established instruments and a demographic survey. As expected given the context, evolution was widely accepted among the population (71% of our sample scored in the \"high\" or \"very high\" acceptance range), but 160 students were in the very low to moderate acceptance range. Over the course of the academic year, regressions on measures of normalized change revealed that as knowledge of the Nature of Science (NOS) increased, evolution acceptance increased (R2 = .378, p << 0.001). Increasing levels of genetic literacy (R2 = .214, p << 0.001) and Evolutionary Knowledge (R2 = .177, p << 0.001) were also significantly associated with increases in acceptance of evolution. We also examined the longitudinal effect of combining various factors into unified working models of acceptance of evolution, and this is the first study by our knowledge to do so. From fall to spring, the influence of student knowledge of NOS on evolution acceptance increased, as did the influence of genetic literacy. Conversely, the influence of religious variables decreased, as did the influence of political inclinations and race/ethnicity. Our results indicate that as students learn more about the nature of science, they may rely more on scientific explanations for natural phenomena. This study also underscores the importance of using longitudinal, multifactorial analyses to understand acceptance of evolution.