A recent study by two Oklahoma researchers is causing a stir on the Internet and is setting records for the number of hits on the website for the journal Evolution Education Outreach. Dr. Ed Marek, Presidential Professor and Director of the John W. Renner Science Education Center at the University of Oklahoma and Dr. Tony Yates, Assistant Professor of Science at Oklahoma Baptist University recently published Teachers teaching misconceptions: a study of factors contributing to high school biology students’ acquisition of biological evolution-related misconceptions, the results of a study of Oklahoma teachers in Oklahoma classrooms during the 2010-11 school year.
Abstract
Background: Research has revealed that high school students matriculate to college holding misconceptions related to biological evolution. These misconceptions interfere with students’ abilities to grasp accurate scientific explanations and serve as fundamental barriers to understanding evolution. Because the scientific community regards evolution as a vital part of science education, it is imperative that students’ misconceptions are identified and their sources revealed. The purpose of this study was to identify the types and prevalence of biological evolution-related misconceptions held by high school biology teachers and their students, and to identify those factors that contribute to student acquisition of such misconceptions, with particular emphasis given to the role of the teacher.
Methods: Thirty-five teachers who taught at least one section of Biology I during the 2010 to 2011 academic year in one of32 Oklahoma public high schools and their respective 536 students served as this study’s unit of analysis. The Biological Evolution Literacy Survey, which possesses 23 biological evolution misconception statements grouped into five categories, served as the research tool for identifying teachers’ misconceptions prior to student instruction and students’ misconceptions both prior to and following instruction in biological evolution concepts, calculating conception index scores, and collecting demographic data. Multiple statistical analyses were performed to identify statistically significant (p < .05) relationships between variables related to student’s acquisition of biological evolution-related misconceptions.
Results: Analyses revealed that students typically exit the Biology I classroom more confident in their biological evolution knowledge but holding greater numbers of misconceptions than they initially possessed upon entering the course. Significant relationships between student acquisition of misconceptions and teachers’ bachelor’s degree field, terminal degree, and hours dedicated to evolution instruction were also revealed. In addition, the probabilities that specific biological evolution-related misconceptions were being transmitted from teachers to their students were also identified.
Conclusions: This study reveals some problematic issues concerning the teaching of biological evolution in Oklahoma’s public high school introductory biology course. No doubt, multiple factors contribute in varying degrees to the acquisition and retention of student misconceptions of biological evolution. However, based on this study’s results, there is little doubt that teachers may serve as sources of biological evolution-related misconceptions or, at the very least, propagators of existing misconceptions. It is imperative that we as educators identify sources of student biological evolution-related misconceptions, identify or develop strategies to reduce or eliminate such misconceptions, and implement these strategies at the appropriate junctures in students’ cognitive development.
Did you catch first line in the Results? Let’s look at it again: Analyses revealed that students typically exit the Biology I classroom more confident in their biological evolution knowledge but holding greater numbers of misconceptions than they initially possessed upon entering the course.
What? How does this happen? Marek and Yates cite previous research that found ” … instruction in evolutionary biology at the high school level has been absent, cursory, or fraught with misinformation ’ (Rutledge and Mitchell 2002 p. 21) and ‘about one-fourth of Oklahoma public school life-science teachers place moderate or strong emphasis on creationism ’ (Weld and McNew 1999, p. 52).”
Other findings:
- 40.8 percent of the surveyed Oklahoma teachers strongly or somewhat agree with the statement, “‘Survival of the fittest’ means basically that ‘only the strong survive’.”
- 36.8 percent of the teachers disagreed with the statement, “Complex structures such as the eye could have been formed by evolution.”
- 25 percent of the teachers agreed with the statement, “Scientific evidence indicates that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time in the past.”
- 31 percent disagreed with the statement, “There exists a large amount of evidence supporting the theory of evolution.”
- When these same teachers were asked to assess their knowledge of evolution, only 67 percent felt that their grasp was “good” or “excellent.”
One of the internet reviews of these research findings (which I posted on the OSTA Twitter feed) cite these findings as a contributing factor in the ongoing struggle to rid the public of long-debunked, yet stubbornly persistent, misconceptions about evolution. The debate has centered on textbooks and whether they should be allowed to teach creationism or its cousin, Intelligent Design, but these findings suggest that it may be a problem with the teachers themselves. You can’t teach what you don’t understand, and in many Oklahoma classrooms, the teachers clearly don’t understand.
Marek and Yates conclude the paper by writing, “These (Oklahoma) graduates deserve a high school biology teacher who functions not as a source of students’ misconceptions but rather as a resource for their identification and elimination. Yet, students’ knowledge structures have been found to approximate those of their teachers (Rutledge and Mitchell 2002), and currently substantial numbers of biology students become biology teachers while still retaining major misconceptions (Nehm et al . 2008). We must work diligently to disrupt this cycle.”
Amen, Ed and Tony, Amen
Download a copy of the paper here.
Recent Research Study Pinpoints Source of Evolution Misconceptions in Oklahoma Biology Students
A recent study by two Oklahoma researchers is causing a stir on the Internet and is setting records for the number of hits on the website for the journal Evolution Education Outreach. Dr. Ed Marek, Presidential Professor and Director of the John W. Renner Science Education Center at the University of Oklahoma and Dr. Tony Yates, Assistant Professor of Science at Oklahoma Baptist University recently published Teachers teaching misconceptions: a study of factors contributing to high school biology students’ acquisition of biological evolution-related misconceptions, the results of a study of Oklahoma teachers in Oklahoma classrooms during the 2010-11 school year.
Abstract
Background: Research has revealed that high school students matriculate to college holding misconceptions related to biological evolution. These misconceptions interfere with students’ abilities to grasp accurate scientific explanations and serve as fundamental barriers to understanding evolution. Because the scientific community regards evolution as a vital part of science education, it is imperative that students’ misconceptions are identified and their sources revealed. The purpose of this study was to identify the types and prevalence of biological evolution-related misconceptions held by high school biology teachers and their students, and to identify those factors that contribute to student acquisition of such misconceptions, with particular emphasis given to the role of the teacher.
Methods: Thirty-five teachers who taught at least one section of Biology I during the 2010 to 2011 academic year in one of32 Oklahoma public high schools and their respective 536 students served as this study’s unit of analysis. The Biological Evolution Literacy Survey, which possesses 23 biological evolution misconception statements grouped into five categories, served as the research tool for identifying teachers’ misconceptions prior to student instruction and students’ misconceptions both prior to and following instruction in biological evolution concepts, calculating conception index scores, and collecting demographic data. Multiple statistical analyses were performed to identify statistically significant (p < .05) relationships between variables related to student’s acquisition of biological evolution-related misconceptions.
Results: Analyses revealed that students typically exit the Biology I classroom more confident in their biological evolution knowledge but holding greater numbers of misconceptions than they initially possessed upon entering the course. Significant relationships between student acquisition of misconceptions and teachers’ bachelor’s degree field, terminal degree, and hours dedicated to evolution instruction were also revealed. In addition, the probabilities that specific biological evolution-related misconceptions were being transmitted from teachers to their students were also identified.
Conclusions: This study reveals some problematic issues concerning the teaching of biological evolution in Oklahoma’s public high school introductory biology course. No doubt, multiple factors contribute in varying degrees to the acquisition and retention of student misconceptions of biological evolution. However, based on this study’s results, there is little doubt that teachers may serve as sources of biological evolution-related misconceptions or, at the very least, propagators of existing misconceptions. It is imperative that we as educators identify sources of student biological evolution-related misconceptions, identify or develop strategies to reduce or eliminate such misconceptions, and implement these strategies at the appropriate junctures in students’ cognitive development.
Did you catch first line in the Results? Let’s look at it again: Analyses revealed that students typically exit the Biology I classroom more confident in their biological evolution knowledge but holding greater numbers of misconceptions than they initially possessed upon entering the course.
What? How does this happen? Marek and Yates cite previous research that found ” … instruction in evolutionary biology at the high school level has been absent, cursory, or fraught with misinformation ’ (Rutledge and Mitchell 2002 p. 21) and ‘about one-fourth of Oklahoma public school life-science teachers place moderate or strong emphasis on creationism ’ (Weld and McNew 1999, p. 52).”
Other findings:
One of the internet reviews of these research findings (which I posted on the OSTA Twitter feed) cite these findings as a contributing factor in the ongoing struggle to rid the public of long-debunked, yet stubbornly persistent, misconceptions about evolution. The debate has centered on textbooks and whether they should be allowed to teach creationism or its cousin, Intelligent Design, but these findings suggest that it may be a problem with the teachers themselves. You can’t teach what you don’t understand, and in many Oklahoma classrooms, the teachers clearly don’t understand.
Marek and Yates conclude the paper by writing, “These (Oklahoma) graduates deserve a high school biology teacher who functions not as a source of students’ misconceptions but rather as a resource for their identification and elimination. Yet, students’ knowledge structures have been found to approximate those of their teachers (Rutledge and Mitchell 2002), and currently substantial numbers of biology students become biology teachers while still retaining major misconceptions (Nehm et al . 2008). We must work diligently to disrupt this cycle.”
Amen, Ed and Tony, Amen
Download a copy of the paper here.