Impact of a Short Evolution Module on Students' Perceived Conflict between Religion and Evolution
Impact of a Short Evolution Module on Students' Perceived Conflict between Religion and Evolution
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DOI：
10.1525/abt.2017.79.2.104
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发表时间：
2017-02-01
影响因子：
0.5
通讯作者：
Brownell, Sara E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Barnes, M. Elizabeth;Elser, James;Brownell, Sara E.
进化论在历史上一直是生物学中充满争议的话题，人们常常认为宗教与进化论之间存在冲突。如果学生认为进化论与他们的宗教信仰相冲突，可能会对他们对进化论的学习和对科学的态度产生负面影响。然而，宗教和进化论被认为是相容的。教师可以将这种兼容性的讨论纳入他们的教学中，但这对学生对兼容性的看法的影响仍然未知。在这项研究中，我们描述了一个为期两周的进化论模块，其中嵌入了有关宗教与进化论之间兼容性的讨论。我们在这个进化模块之前和之后对生物学入门学生进行了调查，了解他们是否认为进化和宗教可以兼容。我们发现，进化论模块将认为进化论与宗教之间存在冲突的学生人数减少了 50%。出乎意料的是，宗教和非宗教学生对宗教与进化论之间的冲突的感知都减少了。这些结果表明，教师如何呈现进化论模块可能会影响学生对宗教与进化论之间兼容性的看法。
Evolution has historically been a topic in biology that is fraught with controversy, and a conflict between religion and evolution is often assumed. If students perceive that evolution is in conflict with their religious beliefs, it can have negative ramifications for their learning of evolution and attitudes toward science. However, religion and evolution have been argued to be compatible. An instructor can incorporate a discussion of this compatibility into their teaching, but the impact of this on students' perceptions of compatibility is still unknown. In this study, we describe a two-week module on evolution with embedded discussion about compatibility between religion and evolution. We surveyed introductory biology students before and after this evolution module about whether they thought evolution and religion could be compatible. We found that the evolution module reduced the number of students who perceived a conflict between evolution and religion by 50 percent. Unexpectedly, perceived conflict between religion and evolution was reduced for both religious and nonreligious students. These results indicate that how instructors present a module on evolution can have an impact on student perceptions of compatibility between religion and evolution.