Abstract
Although a large body of work in science education has established the pervasive problem of science teachers’ alternative conceptions about evolution, knowledge deficits, and anti-evolutionary attitudes, only a handful of interventions have explored the mitigation of these issues using professional development (PD) workshops, and not a single study to our knowledge has investigated if positive outcomes are sustained long after program completion. The central aim of our study was to investigate the long-term consequences of an intensive, short-term professional development program on teachers’ knowledge of evolution, acceptance of evolution, and knowledge of the nature of science (NOS). Program efficacy was examined using a pre-post, delayed post-test design linked to quantitative measures of teacher knowledge, performance (explanatory competence), and acceptance using published instruments shown to generate reliable and valid inferences. Our study is the first to report sustained large effect sizes for both knowledge of evolution, NOS, and acceptance change ~1.5 years after program completion. Concordant with other measures, teacher self-reports indicated that the PD program had lasting effects. Our study suggests that short-term PD built using specific research-based principles can have lasting impacts on teachers’ evolutionary knowledge and acceptance. Because evidence of sustained knowledge and belief change is prerequisite to downstream classroom studies (e.g., impacts on student learning), retention of evolutionary knowledge improvements and acceptance change emerge as central, but previously unstudied, components of teacher evolution PD.
Highlights
Introduction to the nature of Developingnature of science (NOS) formative assess- NOS alternative conceptions reflecscience.Day 2 Science practices (Standard 5.1) Nature of scienceBlack box activityCollins and Pinch (1998)Scientific models and modeling Model testing activityTypes of experiments in science Textbook analysis of NOS conceptsDay 3 Heredity and reproduction (5.3.D) Causes of variation; heredity pat- DNA from the beginning (Cold Driver et al (1994) ternsSpring Harbor online activities)Sexual reproduction and genetics Genetics formative assessment developmentDay 4 Heredity and reproduction (5.3.D) DNA, transcription, translation
Evolution Professional Development a very large body of work has focused on science teachers’ knowledge, alternative conceptions, acceptance of evolution, religious conflict with teaching evolution, and the relationships among these variables, only a small number of intervention studies attempting to address these issues occur in the peer-reviewed literature
We investigated four overarching research questions: 1. What magnitudes of evolution knowledge and acceptance change can be achieved in a short-term teacher professional development (PD) program?
Summary
Introduction to the nature of DevelopingNOS formative assess- NOS alternative conceptions reflecscience (observation, inference, ments tion essay theory, law, etc.).Day 2 Science practices (Standard 5.1) Nature of science (continued)Black box activityCollins and Pinch (1998)Scientific models and modeling Model testing activityTypes of experiments in science Textbook analysis of NOS conceptsDay 3 Heredity and reproduction (5.3.D) Causes of variation; heredity pat- DNA from the beginning (Cold Driver et al (1994) ternsSpring Harbor online activities)Sexual reproduction and genetics Genetics formative assessment developmentDay 4 Heredity and reproduction (5.3.D) DNA, transcription, translation. Evolution Professional Development a very large body of work has focused on science teachers’ knowledge, alternative conceptions, acceptance of evolution, religious conflict with teaching evolution, and the relationships among these variables (see Smith 2010; Sickel and Friedrichsen 2013, for excellent reviews), only a small number of intervention studies attempting to address these issues occur in the peer-reviewed literature (see Table 1). While the results of these studies from nearly 20 years ago were very promising, and provide evidence for the efficacy of short-term interventions, the measures used to substantiate learning gains and acceptance levels have not been widely used in evolution education, making it difficult to align these results with most work in evolution education (see Table 1) It is not clear if the small subset of participants (n = 9) who chose to complete the follow-up study were representative of the entire sample. The intervention did not appear to directly measure teachers’ knowledge of evolution
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