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

Abstract

Background: Recent research suggests a relationship between understanding of macroevolutionary principles (such as phylogenetics) and acceptance of evolution in biology majors. Method: 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. Results: 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. Conclusions: 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.