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Effects of Instruction, College Major, and Personal Epistemology on the Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution by Community College Students.

紀錄類型:	書目-電子資源 : Monograph/item
正題名/作者:	Effects of Instruction, College Major, and Personal Epistemology on the Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution by Community College Students./
作者:	Taylor, David A.
出版者:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2020,
面頁冊數:	129 p.
附註:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 81-11, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International81-11A.
標題:	Community college education. -
電子資源:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=27836113
ISBN:	9798645423742

Effects of Instruction, College Major, and Personal Epistemology on the Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution by Community College Students.
Taylor, David A.

Effects of Instruction, College Major, and Personal Epistemology on the Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution by Community College Students. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2020 - 129 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 81-11, Section: A.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Aurora University, 2020.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of instruction in biology, choice of college major, and epistemological development on the acceptance of the theory of evolution by community college students. Evolution is the central conceptual paradigm in the field of biology, but is deemed controversial by some non-scientists and thus rejected as a valid explanatory construct. Evolution acceptance has been well-studied in secondary school and college populations, but has been largely ignored in community college populations.Previous work has produced conflicting results to the question of whether instruction in evolutionary theory helps promote acceptance of it by college students. Previous findings also disagree on whether students majoring in biology are more likely to accept evolution than students majoring in other disciplines. Relatively new research suggests that the personal epistemology of a learner may affect their tendency to accept the theory of evolution, with more likely acceptance by students that indicate more flexible thinking dispositions and more tentative conceptions of the nature of knowledge. The purpose of this study was to clarify the effects of instruction and college major on evolution acceptance and to test the importance of epistemological development, as defined by William Perry's scheme of intellectual and ethical development (1970), to this matter. Additionally, this study is the first to directly compare the evolution acceptance of community college students to counterpart peers at a four-year university.A cluster sample of 236 community college biology majors, 202 community college non-majors, and 85 four-year university biology majors participated in the study. Within the first two weeks of a college semester, participants were asked a set of demographic questions and assessed for epistemological development, according to Perry's scheme, with the Learning Context Questionnaire (LCQ) instrument. Additionally, all participants' acceptance of evolution was measured using the Measure of the Acceptance of Evolution (MATE) survey instrument both early and late in the same semester. One-way, repeated, and factorial ANOVAs, as well as linear regression, were used to assess the relative importance of the independent variables in predicting evolution acceptance.The findings of this study indicated that instruction, college major, and epistemological development play important roles in predicting evolution acceptance of community college students. MATE scores were significantly higher after instruction in evolution for both biology majors and non-majors, though gains were greater in the majors sample. After instruction, both community college majors and non-majors produced significantly higher MATE scores than their four-year university peers, who did not receive specific instruction in evolutionary theory. Epistemological development significantly predicted evolution acceptance in near linear fashion both early in the semester and after instruction, but did not affect change in acceptance over the course of the sampled semester. The results indicate that if promoting acceptance of evolution is a goal of instruction in biology, community college instructors need to account for the epistemological diversity of their students. Students at varying positions of their epistemological development may not cognitively engage with all aspects of instruction in evolutionary theory in the same way and may require more personalized scaffolding techniques to challenge their native conceptions. A benefit of this finding is that it suggests that promoting an acceptance of evolution is aligned with the generalized, important educational goal of fostering intellectual development in students.

ISBN: 9798645423742Subjects--Topical Terms:

2122836
Community college education.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Community college

Effects of Instruction, College Major, and Personal Epistemology on the Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution by Community College Students.
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