Opinions of Pre-Service Teachers about Evolution

Abstract

Evolution is a cornerstone that combines all sub-branches of biology in a meaningful way. Developing a true understanding of evolution, however, can only be achieved through comprehensive education. In the community, teachers have an important role in removing erroneous attitudes toward evolution, in which science and biology teachers have a key role. This study aimed to reveal pre-service teachers’ perspective on evolution by eliciting the opinions of science pre-service teachers who had attended a 14-week evolution course and those who had not yet taken this course using a delimited draft sentence. According to the data, students who had limited knowledge about evolution, either dogmatically rejected evolution or defined evolution in a simple way, as a change. The rate of rejecting the concept of evolution was decreased among the students who had taken the course about evolution. In addition, there was an increased ratio of those who described evolution using high-level knowledge and a non-rejecting style. Another interesting outcome mentioned in the statements of the students was that keeping the content of the course as wide as possible reduced prejudice against the concept of evolution, decreased rejection rate, and also allowed students to change the erroneous/incorrect ideas that they previously held about evolution.