TY - JOUR

T1 - How strongly does statistical reasoning influence knowledge and acceptance of evolution?

AU - Fiedler, Daniela

AU - Sbeglia, Gena C.

AU - Nehm, Ross H.

AU - Harms, Ute

N1 - Funding Information: Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council), Grant/Award Number: 2012‐5344; National Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: #1322872 Funding information Funding Information: The study reported here was part of the project “EvoVis: Challenging Threshold Concepts in Life Science – enhancing understanding of evolution by visualization”, funded by Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council). Sbeglia and Nehm were supported by the National Science Foundation grant #1322872. All views are those of the authors. We are very thankful to the students who participated in this study. Funding Information: The study reported here was part of the project ?EvoVis: Challenging Threshold Concepts in Life Science ? enhancing understanding of evolution by visualization?, funded by Vetenskapsr?det (Swedish Research Council). Sbeglia and Nehm were supported by the National Science Foundation grant #1322872. All views are those of the authors. We are very thankful to the students who participated in this study. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 The Authors. Journal of Research in Science Teaching published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

PY - 2019/11/1

Y1 - 2019/11/1

N2 - A large body of research has examined students' conceptions of evolution and their relationships to acceptance of evolution. Proficiency in statistical and probabilistic reasoning has long been considered to be an essential feature of evolutionary reasoning, yet almost no empirical work has explored these putative connections. The RaPro instruments have recently been developed to measure statistical reasoning in the contexts of mathematics (RaProMath) and evolution (RaProEvo). Our study provides additional validation of these instruments using Rasch analysis and quantifies the contribution of statistical reasoning to both understanding and accepting evolution. We recruited a large sample (N = 564) of undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory biology course at a large public research university in the United States. Students completed a suite of published instruments that assessed statistical reasoning, evolutionary understanding, and evolutionary acceptance. Our findings indicate that validity inferences derived from RaPro scores generalized to the new sample, and that proficiency in statistical reasoning explained 28% of the variance in evolutionary knowledge and 19% of the variation in evolutionary acceptance. The inclusion of demographic variables into the model significantly increased the explained variance in acceptance. Notably, the variance in evolution acceptance explained by statistical reasoning was comparable to that of thinking dispositions or evolutionary knowledge reported in the literature. This work provides the first large-scale evidence of the role of statistical reasoning in evolutionary knowledge and acceptance and motivates future work to explore how statistical literacy should be integrated into evolution education efforts.

AB - A large body of research has examined students' conceptions of evolution and their relationships to acceptance of evolution. Proficiency in statistical and probabilistic reasoning has long been considered to be an essential feature of evolutionary reasoning, yet almost no empirical work has explored these putative connections. The RaPro instruments have recently been developed to measure statistical reasoning in the contexts of mathematics (RaProMath) and evolution (RaProEvo). Our study provides additional validation of these instruments using Rasch analysis and quantifies the contribution of statistical reasoning to both understanding and accepting evolution. We recruited a large sample (N = 564) of undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory biology course at a large public research university in the United States. Students completed a suite of published instruments that assessed statistical reasoning, evolutionary understanding, and evolutionary acceptance. Our findings indicate that validity inferences derived from RaPro scores generalized to the new sample, and that proficiency in statistical reasoning explained 28% of the variance in evolutionary knowledge and 19% of the variation in evolutionary acceptance. The inclusion of demographic variables into the model significantly increased the explained variance in acceptance. Notably, the variance in evolution acceptance explained by statistical reasoning was comparable to that of thinking dispositions or evolutionary knowledge reported in the literature. This work provides the first large-scale evidence of the role of statistical reasoning in evolutionary knowledge and acceptance and motivates future work to explore how statistical literacy should be integrated into evolution education efforts.

KW - evolution

KW - randomness and probability

KW - threshold concepts

KW - undergraduates

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073538867&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/tea.21547

DO - 10.1002/tea.21547

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85073538867

VL - 56

SP - 1183

EP - 1206

JO - Journal of Research in Science Teaching

JF - Journal of Research in Science Teaching

SN - 0022-4308

IS - 9

ER -