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STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data

Even though it is widely held that the theory of evolution is one of the pillars of the biological sciences, as we begin the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is alarming how little we know about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and non-STEM majors’ misconce...

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Autores principales: Archila, Pablo Antonio, Restrepo, Silvia, Truscott de Mejía, Anne‑Marie, Molina, Jorge
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10040916/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37359257
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11191-023-00428-5
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author Archila, Pablo Antonio
Restrepo, Silvia
Truscott de Mejía, Anne‑Marie
Molina, Jorge
author_facet Archila, Pablo Antonio
Restrepo, Silvia
Truscott de Mejía, Anne‑Marie
Molina, Jorge
author_sort Archila, Pablo Antonio
collection PubMed
description Even though it is widely held that the theory of evolution is one of the pillars of the biological sciences, as we begin the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is alarming how little we know about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and non-STEM majors’ misconceptions about evolution in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Greece, to name a few. The situation is even more complicated if we acknowledge that contemporary educational approaches (e.g., student-centered learning) mean that students’ misconceptions are one of the multiple aspects that influence the construction of meaningful learning. Here, we present a picture of Colombian STEM/non-STEM majors’ misconceptions about evolution. Participants were 547 students from different STEM/non-STEM majors (278 females and 269 males, 16–24 years old). During 5 years (10 academic semesters), data were collected from students’ responses to an 11-item questionnaire administered in a Colombian university. We hypothesized that the academic semester within these 5 years in which each student completed the instrument as well as respondents’ age, gender, and/or major may influence their misconceptions about evolution. Results reveal that participants had a moderate understanding of evolution. Also, we found a limited understanding of microevolution among participants. Furthermore, cross-sectional analyses of differences in undergraduates’ responses across demographic variables showed that despite apparent differences, these were not reliable since the differences were not statistically significant. Implications for evolution education are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-100409162023-03-27 STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data Archila, Pablo Antonio Restrepo, Silvia Truscott de Mejía, Anne‑Marie Molina, Jorge Sci Educ (Dordr) Article Even though it is widely held that the theory of evolution is one of the pillars of the biological sciences, as we begin the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is alarming how little we know about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and non-STEM majors’ misconceptions about evolution in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Greece, to name a few. The situation is even more complicated if we acknowledge that contemporary educational approaches (e.g., student-centered learning) mean that students’ misconceptions are one of the multiple aspects that influence the construction of meaningful learning. Here, we present a picture of Colombian STEM/non-STEM majors’ misconceptions about evolution. Participants were 547 students from different STEM/non-STEM majors (278 females and 269 males, 16–24 years old). During 5 years (10 academic semesters), data were collected from students’ responses to an 11-item questionnaire administered in a Colombian university. We hypothesized that the academic semester within these 5 years in which each student completed the instrument as well as respondents’ age, gender, and/or major may influence their misconceptions about evolution. Results reveal that participants had a moderate understanding of evolution. Also, we found a limited understanding of microevolution among participants. Furthermore, cross-sectional analyses of differences in undergraduates’ responses across demographic variables showed that despite apparent differences, these were not reliable since the differences were not statistically significant. Implications for evolution education are discussed. Springer Netherlands 2023-03-27 /pmc/articles/PMC10040916/ /pubmed/37359257 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11191-023-00428-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Archila, Pablo Antonio
Restrepo, Silvia
Truscott de Mejía, Anne‑Marie
Molina, Jorge
STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data
title STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data
title_full STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data
title_fullStr STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data
title_full_unstemmed STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data
title_short STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data
title_sort stem and non-stem misconceptions about evolution: findings from 5 years of data
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10040916/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37359257
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11191-023-00428-5
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