European first-year university students accept evolution but lack substantial knowledge about it: a standardized European cross-country assessment

Kuschmierz, Paul and Beniermann, Anna and Bergmann, Alexander and Pinxten, Rianne and Aivelo, Tuomas and Berniak‑Woźny, Justyna and Bohlin, Gustav and Bugallo‑Rodriguez, Anxela and Cardia, Pedro and Cavadas, Bento Filipe Barreiras Pinto and Cebesoy, Umran Betul and Cvetković, Dragana D. and Demarsy, Emilie and Đorđević, Mirko S. and Drobniak, Szymon M. and Dubchak, Liudmyla and Dvořáková, Radka M. and Fančovičová, Jana and Fortin, Corinne and Futo, Momir and Geamănă, Nicoleta Adriana and Gericke, Niklas and Grasso, Donato A. and Korfiatis, Konstantinos and Lendvai, Ádám Zoltán and Mavrikaki, Evangelia and Meneganzin, Andra and Mogias, Athanasios and Möller, Andrea and Mota, Paulo G and Naciri, Yamama and Németh, Zoltán and Ożańska‑Ponikwia, Katarzyna and Paolucci, Silvia and Pap, Péter László and Petersson, Maria and Pietrzak, Barbara and Pievani, Telmo and Pobric, Alma and Porozovs, Juris and Realdon, Giulia and Sá‑Pinto, Xana and Savković, Uros B and Sicard, Mathieu and Sofonea, Mircea T and Sorgo, Andrej and Stermin, Alexandru and Tăuşan, Ioan and Torkar, Gregor and Türkmen, Lutfullah and Tutnjević, Slavica and Uitto, Anna E and Varga, Máté and Varga, Mirna and Vazquez‑Ben, Lucia and Viguera, Enrique and Virtbauer, Lisa Christine and Vutsova, Albena and Yruela, Inmaculada and Zandveld, Jelle and Graf, Dittmar (2021) European first-year university students accept evolution but lack substantial knowledge about it: a standardized European cross-country assessment. EVOLUTION: EDUCATION AND OUTREACH, 14. ISSN 1936-6426 (Print) 1936-6434 (Online)

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Abstract

Background: Investigations of evolution knowledge and acceptance and their relation are central to evolution edu‑ cation research. Ambiguous results in this field of study demonstrate a variety of measuring issues, for instance differ‑ ently theorized constructs, or a lack of standardized methods, especially for cross‑country comparisons. In particular, meaningful comparisons across European countries, with their varying cultural backgrounds and education systems, are rare, often include only few countries, and lack standardization. To address these deficits, we conducted a stand‑ ardized European survey, on 9200 first‑year university students in 26 European countries utilizing a validated, com‑ prehensive questionnaire, the “Evolution Education Questionnaire”, to assess evolution acceptance and knowledge, as well as influencing factors on evolution acceptance. Results: We found that, despite European countries’ different cultural backgrounds and education systems, European first‑year university students generally accept evolution. At the same time, they lack substantial knowledge about it, even if they are enrolled in a biology‑related study program. Additionally, we developed a multilevel‑model that determines religious faith as the main influencing factor in accepting evolution. According to our model, knowledge about evolution and interest in biological topics also increase acceptance of evolution, but to a much lesser extent than religious faith. The effect of age and sex, as well as the country’s affiliation, students’ denomination, and whether or not a student is enrolled in a biology‑related university program, is negligible. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that, despite all their differences, most of the European education systems for upper secondary education lead to acceptance of evolution at least in university students. It appears that, at least in this sample, the differences in knowledge between countries reflect neither the extent to which school curricula cover evolutionary biology nor the percentage of biology‑related students in the country samples. Future studies should investigate the role of different European school curricula, identify particularly problematic or underrepre‑ sented evolutionary concepts in biology education, and analyze the role of religious faith when teaching evolution. Keywords: Evolution, Acceptance, Knowledge, Multilevel modeling, Socioscientific issues, Religious faith, Higher education, Europe, Assessment, Attitude

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