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RESEARCH PAPER
Evolutionary Content Knowledge, Religiosity and Educational Background of Slovene Preschool and Primary School Pre-Service Teachers
1
University of Ljubljana, SLOVENIA
2
University of Maribor, SLOVENIA
Publication date: 2020-04-22
EURASIA J. Math., Sci Tech. Ed 2020;16(7):em1855
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Evolution by natural selection is the fundamental backbone of the life sciences. Therefore, it is
important for teacher education programs to ensure graduates possess a strong knowledge of
evolution in order to teach at all levels of biology education. The main aim was to investigate the
impacts of the Slovene pre-service preschool and primary school teachers’ religiosity and
educational background on their evolutionary content knowledge. In the present study,
understanding of five evolutionary topics, religiosity and educational background of 269 students
was studied. Results show that students have a very poor understanding of evolution. They very
often use teleological reasoning. Although many pieces of research have shown that religiosity
can be in conflict with evolutionary theory, our findings show that religiosity does not significantly
correlate with evolutionary knowledge nor to the educational background of students. However,
for students’ understanding of evolution, it is important how many years of biology lessons they
had in secondary school. This should be better taken into account by educational policymakers
because evolutionary principles are becoming increasingly relevant in medicine, agriculture and
other socio-scientific topics.
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