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…

Numerous studies have shown that a considerable number of students do not accept the theory of evolution, prompting the scientific community to seek ways to improve how lessons on evolution are designed in order to promote students' acceptance. A crucial factor identified in many studies is students' comprehension of the nature of science and…

Despite being a fundamental concept in biology, evolution continues to be one of the most challenging topics to teach in science education. Ideas of evolution emphasising anatomical or behavioural features of individuals, as opposed to the interplay between genetics and the environment, are reinforced through language and culture, making them…

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) cites evolution as a core concept of biology, yet studies have found that biology students often exhibit low acceptance of evolution. As such, much of evolution education research aims to identify the causes of evolution rejection and develop instructional strategies to increase…

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…

This article examines the place of evolutionary science in protestant and Catholic residential colleges associated with Australian public universities across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Although faith-based universities are a relatively recent phenomenon in Australia, a quasi-federal model of secular teaching and accrediting…

This study examined the impact of a pedagogy that is culturally influenced and laced with technological and contextual elements known as the culturo-techno-contextual approach (CTCA) on promoting knowledge retention of biology concepts. The research design was mixed methods, and the sample consisted of 88 senior secondary school II students…

In the 2020/21 school year, education changed overnight due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of the lockdown on students' knowledge of evolution. Two student groups were compared; both covered the same subject matter, and only the implementation differed: either online or in class. The sample consisted of…

Can a teacher aim for students to "believe" evolution without indoctrinating them? Recent discussions of indoctrination in evolution education suggest that such teaching must inevitably indoctrinate but is "warranted" in some cases; while science educators concerned about teaching for "belief" argue that such teaching…

This study examines what prior knowledge and misconceptions about evolutionary theory students bring with them into an introductory biological anthropology course. One hundred and fifty-three students completed short, anonymous surveys about evolution on the first day of class before any content was discussed. Of a possible seven points, the…

This study based on cognitive and social semiotic theories investigates whether the influence of specific features of instructional representation from adolescent textbook images could last until adulthood in certain cultures. Two cultural groups, Indonesian (n = 61) and Taiwanese (n = 60) college students, were recruited from a public Taiwanese…

Research has previously examined the role of the epistemological background of students in accepting or rejecting the theory of evolution. In this study, the participants were 11 undergraduate biology major students in a private university in Beirut, Lebanon. We collected data through semi-structured interviews, and we extracted the patterns…

Evolution is a fundamental part of biology and thus it is essential that biology preservice teachers understand and accept it. The relationship between knowledge and acceptance of evolution, and specifically human evolution, has not been fully investigated in Israel. We sought to learn about that relationship amongst Israeli Jewish religious…

Despite the importance of emotions in science education, research?on affect remains sparse. A promising direction is to explore the role of immersive visualisation in evoking affective responses. We investigate whether touch-based zooming interaction with a tabletop visualisation of the tree of life evokes various affective responses,…

We aimed to examine the acceptance of evolution and its relationship with religiosity among Greek biology university students and whether the attendance of an evolutionary biology course could affect the acceptance of evolution. In Greece the teaching of evolution has been downgraded from secondary education for years and Greeks exhibit a strong…