This case study focuses on a longitudinal study of changes in public acceptance of evolution in the United States. Change over time is often a central issue in social science research questions. There are two kinds of change over time. Time-series studies address change in populations or groups over time. Longitudinal studies address changes in…

Learning about evolution can be challenging for students, as a full understanding may require them to see the world in new ways, to master a disciplinary language and to understand complex processes. Drawing on a long line of theoretically grounded arguments of philosophers and researchers for including wonder in science teaching, we report on the…

Extensive research has shown that one of the benefits of programming to learn about scientific phenomena is that it facilitates learning about mechanisms underlying the phenomenon. However, using programming activities in classrooms is associated with costs such as requiring additional time to learn to program or students needing prior experience…

Understanding of evolution helps solve biological problems in areas that affect our lives. One of the ways of adopting the concept of evolution leads through a conceptual change. We investigated whether inductively prepared educational activities, focused on evolution, have the potential to create conceptual changes in students' conceptual…

Curriculum statements and textbooks are considered to be vital support tools for teachers, particularly during times of curriculum innovation. A recent change in South Africa was the controversial inclusion of evolution in the school curriculum, raising serious concerns amongst biology teachers regarding the adequacy of their content and…

In this study, we explore how two different prompt types within an online computer-based inquiry learning environment enhance 392 7th grade students' explanations of evolution with three teachers. In the "elaborating" prompt condition, students are prompted to write explanations that support the accepted theory of evolution. In the…

The aim of this study was to design and evaluate an inquiry- and activity-based learning unit for the classroom that uses biological collections to teach key evolutionary concepts and to support the understanding and appreciation of the work of a museum. The unit consisted of three parts that focused on the most important tasks of museums:…

The present study explores the extent and precision of evolutionary explanations for antibiotic resistance in communication directed toward the Swedish public. Bacterial resistance develops through evolutionary mechanisms and knowledge of these helps to explain causes underlying the growing prevalence of resistant strains, as well as important…

The objective of this naturalistic study was to explore, model and visualise the learning progress of 13-year-old students in the domain of evolution theory. Data were collected under actual classroom conditions and with a sample size of 107 learners, which followed a teaching unit on Darwin's theory of natural selection. Before and after the…

This study investigated seventh grade learners' decision making about genetic engineering concepts and applications. A social network analyses supported by technology tracked changes in student understanding with a focus on social and conceptual influences. Results indicated that several social and conceptual mechanisms potentially affected how…

Evolutionary and biological approaches tend to suggest that social dominance is predominately an aspect of male social organization. Furthermore, when females behave non-normatively, they are less positively evaluated than males engaging in the same behavior. Alternate, less familiar models of females and dominance/aggression underlie the present…