Investigating the relationship between college students’ acceptance of evolution and tree thinking understanding

摘要

Recent research suggests a relationship between understanding of macroevolutionary principles (such as phylogenetics) and acceptance of evolution in biology majors. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively investigate the relationship between ability to interpret phylogenetic trees (tree thinking) and acceptance of evolutionary theory for 92 university non-science majors before and after a general education biology course. We found that the majority of students taking the course held strong religious affiliations but were still open to having their mind changed and accepted evolution as a valid scientific theory. Students started and ended the course with a relatively high acceptance of evolutionary theory, but the nature of their acceptance changed significantly and we documented several such shifts. Additionally, we found a significant increase in students’ tree thinking understanding after instruction and a slight, but significant, correlation between evolution acceptance and tree thinking understanding. Our investigation demonstrated that targeted evolution instruction using a tree thinking approach may alter students’ acceptance of evolution, even if the students initially hold strong anti-evolution ideas. By learning how college students understand and develop ideas about evolution using a visual approach, we can better target areas of confusion and begin forming guidelines for effective evolution instruction.