An exploration of instructor perceptions of community college students' attitudes towards evolution

Abstract

Background: Faculty perception of student knowledge and acceptance of subject matter affects the choice of what to teach and how to teach it. Accurate assessment of student acceptance of evolution, then, is relevant to how the subject should be taught. To explore the accuracy of such assessment, we compared how community college instructors of life sciences courses perceive students' attitudes towards evolution with those students' actual attitudes towards evolution. Results: The research had two components: (1) a survey of students of several biology classes at a community college about their acceptance of evolutionary theory and (2) interviews with the biology faculty teaching those classes about their perceptions of their students' attitudes towards evolution. Results of the study indicate relatively high levels of acceptance of evolution among community college students at this West Coast institution. We also found that community college instructors of life sciences courses varied in accuracy of their perceptions of their students' attitudes towards evolution-but not systematically. Although one professor assessed each class quite accurately, the other two professors frequently underestimated the acceptance of evolution among their students. Conclusions: Errors in perception seemed independent of whether the class was composed of majors, nonmajors, or a combination. Clearly, in our sample there is much idiosyncrasy regarding community college instructor accuracy concerning student opinions about evolution.