Improving How Evolution Is Taught: Facilitating a Shift from Memorization to Evolutionary Thinking

Table 1 True/False questions used to identify student misconceptions about evolution

1. An individual can evolve within its lifetime.
2. Evolution is called a “theory” because there is still debate about it in the scientific community.
3. Charles Darwin was the first person to propose the idea of evolution.
4. Evolution is a progressive process that works like a ladder, with less-evolved organisms on the lower rungs and more-evolved organisms on the higher rungs. We can therefore refer to “higher” and “lower” organisms.
5. Humans evolved from chimpanzees.
6. Evolution is essentially “chance.”

These six questions were part of the questionnaire completed on the first and last days of class to identify how student misconceptions changed throughout the term

ISSN: 1936-6434