Evolution is a key feature of undergraduate biology education: the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has identified evolution as one of the five core concepts of biology, and it is relevant to a wide array of biology-related careers. If biology instructors want students to use evolution to address scientific challenges…

Although much research exists of students' alternative conceptions about evolution and natural selection, the way in which these vary in time and how scientific explanations change during instruction remains to be described and understood. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to characterise the nature of the change in student…

Evolution is central to biology education and yet, it is often one of the most misunderstood and controversial topics that biology educators must teach. Research spanning the last four decades has shown that students continue to struggle, even with direct instruction, to understand the process of evolution by natural selection. In my first…

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…

Teaching human evolution should be initialized by understanding the learners' perspective to yield fruitful results. This study was conducted to aid in achieving that objective and provide ways for educators to develop strategies that learners can perceive and appreciate, particularly those who are not inclined toward science. This study also…

This study researches relationships between 12th-grade students' epistemological beliefs towards science and their conceptual understanding of evolution by natural selection. Forty-two 12th-grade students in a suburban high school in Cyprus, who participated in a biology course, completed measures of their: (1) epistemological beliefs towards…

Students possess alternative conceptions of many science topics, and these conceptions can act as obstacles for learning scientific concepts. In the field of biology education, students' alternative conceptions of evolution have been widely investigated. However, there is little research on how teachers diagnose and deal with these alternative…

Evolution is an essential underlying concept in biology. Previous research demonstrates that many obstacles exist that prevent successful teaching and learning about evolution. This research study used the theoretical framework of cultural border crossing and its underlying cognitive explanation, collateral learning, to design an intervention for…

Even though the concept of species is central in biology, the history of species concept and the existence of different species concepts are rarely discussed in biology classroom. This is unfortunate, as teachers could use the plurality of species concepts to enrich discussion in the classroom. Therefore, knowing the students' perception of…

Research examining the relationship between science and religion has often painted a narrative of conflict for students with various religious beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to present a counter-narrative based on a study carried out in Singapore, which provides a unique multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment and geopolitical context…

Understanding of evolution is foundational to be a scientifically literate citizen because it allows analysis of socioscientific issues, such as biodiversity conservation, biotechnology applications, and human-induced climate change. Unfortunately, students who weakly understand evolution fail to understand its importance in everyday life and…

Understanding phylogenetic trees representing evolutionary relationships of living organisms is essential in school biology. Traditional instructions based on lectures and textbooks with pictorial presentations have been proven ineffective to promote students' understanding of the concept. This study, therefore, developed a game-based learning…

The purpose of the current study was to explore and further elucidate secondary teachers' knowledge of students' conceptions (KOSC) on the topic of evolution by natural selection. Prior research has documented students' natural selection conceptions, but allowing the opportunity for teachers to describe their own students' conceptions can permit…

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 use of scientific modeling has been shown to be highly effective in the learning of science content in multiple disciplines for non-English Learners (EL). However, the benefits of using this pedagogy with ELs have not been heavily explored. This article discusses the use of modeling-based evolution and population ecology pedagogical units in a…