The issue of the proper goals of science education and science teacher education have been a focus of the science education and philosophy of science communities in recent years. More particularly, the issue of whether belief/acceptance of evolution and/or understanding are the appropriate goals for evolution educators and the issue of the precise…

Evolutionary anthropologists commonly describe humans as a highly cooperative species, based on our evolved socio-cognitive capacities. However, students and the general public may not necessarily share this view about our species. At the same time, fostering our ability to cooperate is considered a key foundation for achieving sustainable…

The fundamental scientific concept of evolution occurring by natural selection is home to many deeply held alternative conceptions and considered difficult to teach. Science teachers' subject matter knowledge (SMK) and the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) component of knowledge of students' conceptions (KOSC) can be valuable resources for…

This article focuses on students' discursive moves and reasoning practices while engaged in a task that requires making explanatory links between sickle cell disease and malaria. Both diseases pertain to key areas of the biology curriculum, namely, genetic variability and natural selection, and are connected to the theory of evolution of living…

The purpose of this hermeneutical phenomenology study was to explore and describe the perspective transformations of 11 science instructors teaching at Christian high schools. These science teachers previously believed the evolutionary paradigm of origins. However, they have all experienced a transformation and now hold a young-earth creation…

The Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS) is an example of a research-based instrument that assesses conceptual understanding in an area that contains well-documented alternative conceptions. Much of the CINS's use and original validation has been relegated to undergraduate settings, but the information learned from student responses on…

In June 2013, the third World Evolution Summit convened on San Cristóbal, hosting scientists from around the world (Paz-y-Miño-C and Espinosa 2013)--neither the first nor likely the last gathering of biologists on these remote islands. Clearly, both locals and an international audience perceive Galápagos as figuring prominently in discourse about…

Acknowledging the diverse perceptions about science-religion relationships among learners who come from various religious environments may increase learners' willingness to learn about evolution. This study is based on a zoology course designed for in-service teachers, which aimed to provide basic scientific knowledge about evolution using the…

The teaching of socioscientific issues (SSI) holds promise for advancing functional scientific literacy, promoting critical thinking, and providing an interesting context for learning required science content, but few teachers actually employ this teaching method in K-12 classrooms. One common reason cited by teachers is their concern about the…

Research demonstrates that teachers' acceptance or rejection of evolution impacts whether they teach evolution in their classrooms. Furthermore, factors such as religiosity and nature of science understanding impact acceptance or rejection. What is absent from the literature is an exploration of experiences that inform choices made regarding…

In this manuscript, three science educators describe strategies used to effectively communicate about religiously and culturally sensitive science content and share lessons learned from their experiences. Mark A. Bloom (2019-2021 Fellow) describes the challenges he overcame in teaching climate change science at an evangelical university by…

Secondary school science teachers report that their approaches to some topics are affected by the recognition that some pupils hold religious beliefs, while primary school teacher trainees express concern about teaching evolution to children with a religious faith. Pupils in British schools and internationally often assume a conflict between…

Despite scientific evidence suggesting close phylogenetic relationship between chimpanzees and humans, the inclusion of these apes in the genus "Homo" is controversial. Several tools have been used to analyse this issue such as fossils, molecular clock and genome. This work intended to understand the biology teachers' conceptions about…

This study examined the acceptance of evolutionary theory among Chinese preservice biology teachers. We explored the nature of relationship between acceptance of evolutionary theory and potential predictors of acceptance such as understanding of evolutionary theory, mother's education level, thinking dispositions, religious orientation, and years…

The teaching process is well described as an interaction between teacher, student, and content. Thus, it seems obvious that teachers must know the content to help students to learn it. Instruments have been developed to measure teachers' content knowledge (CK) in biology, but few of them have been provided to the scientific community. Furthermore,…