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Analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior

BACKGROUND: Even though evolution is the overarching principle that connects all areas of biology, a significant proportion of pre-service teachers do not intend to teach evolution, minimize the teaching of evolution, or teach alternative ideas in biology classes. To prevent adverse teaching practic...

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Autores principales: Aptyka, Helena, Großschedl, Jörg
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9673228/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36415648
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12052-022-00175-1
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author Aptyka, Helena
Großschedl, Jörg
author_facet Aptyka, Helena
Großschedl, Jörg
author_sort Aptyka, Helena
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Even though evolution is the overarching principle that connects all areas of biology, a significant proportion of pre-service teachers do not intend to teach evolution, minimize the teaching of evolution, or teach alternative ideas in biology classes. To prevent adverse teaching practices and promote effective pre-service teacher education, we aimed to identify and analyze variables that foster or hinder their behavioral intentions to teach evolution. METHOD: We adopted a behavioral psychology research perspective and developed a research model based on the theory of planned behavior to examine behavioral intentions for teaching evolution in biology classrooms. We extended the model with additional variables that have been delineated by teacher education research as essential determinants for the behavioral intention to teach evolution. We proposed several hypotheses suggesting that the attitude toward teaching evolution, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, personal religious faith, perceived usefulness, and knowledge about evolution determine a person’s behavioral intention. We conducted a quantitative cross-sectional study in teacher education to test the hypotheses and surveyed N = 339 pre-service biology teachers using an online questionnaire. We analyzed the data using a two-stage structural equation model. RESULTS: We were able to confirm all proposed hypotheses. The most important results revealed that pre-service teachers’ knowledge about and perceived usefulness of evolution are only moderately pronounced. Moreover, the subjective norm is a predictor not only of behavioral intention but also of the attitude toward teaching evolution. The variable of perceived behavior control partly moderates the relationship between knowledge about evolution and behavioral intention. Additionally, perceived usefulness is an important and marginally stronger predictor of a person’s attitude than personal religious faith. CONCLUSION: The extended model of the theory of planned behavior has highlighted the need for educational programs to increase knowledge about and the perceived usefulness of evolution even stronger. The findings delineated the effects of essential determinants on behavioral intentions and provided information about the necessary levers of teacher education. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12052-022-00175-1.
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spelling pubmed-96732282022-11-18 Analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior Aptyka, Helena Großschedl, Jörg Evolution (N Y) Research BACKGROUND: Even though evolution is the overarching principle that connects all areas of biology, a significant proportion of pre-service teachers do not intend to teach evolution, minimize the teaching of evolution, or teach alternative ideas in biology classes. To prevent adverse teaching practices and promote effective pre-service teacher education, we aimed to identify and analyze variables that foster or hinder their behavioral intentions to teach evolution. METHOD: We adopted a behavioral psychology research perspective and developed a research model based on the theory of planned behavior to examine behavioral intentions for teaching evolution in biology classrooms. We extended the model with additional variables that have been delineated by teacher education research as essential determinants for the behavioral intention to teach evolution. We proposed several hypotheses suggesting that the attitude toward teaching evolution, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, personal religious faith, perceived usefulness, and knowledge about evolution determine a person’s behavioral intention. We conducted a quantitative cross-sectional study in teacher education to test the hypotheses and surveyed N = 339 pre-service biology teachers using an online questionnaire. We analyzed the data using a two-stage structural equation model. RESULTS: We were able to confirm all proposed hypotheses. The most important results revealed that pre-service teachers’ knowledge about and perceived usefulness of evolution are only moderately pronounced. Moreover, the subjective norm is a predictor not only of behavioral intention but also of the attitude toward teaching evolution. The variable of perceived behavior control partly moderates the relationship between knowledge about evolution and behavioral intention. Additionally, perceived usefulness is an important and marginally stronger predictor of a person’s attitude than personal religious faith. CONCLUSION: The extended model of the theory of planned behavior has highlighted the need for educational programs to increase knowledge about and the perceived usefulness of evolution even stronger. The findings delineated the effects of essential determinants on behavioral intentions and provided information about the necessary levers of teacher education. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12052-022-00175-1. Springer US 2022-11-18 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9673228/ /pubmed/36415648 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12052-022-00175-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 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/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Aptyka, Helena
Großschedl, Jörg
Analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior
title Analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior
title_full Analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior
title_fullStr Analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior
title_full_unstemmed Analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior
title_short Analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior
title_sort analyzing pre-service biology teachers’ intention to teach evolution using the theory of planned behavior
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9673228/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36415648
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12052-022-00175-1
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