Evolution hesitancy: challenges and a way forward for teachers and teacher educators

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Evolution hesitancy: challenges and a way forward for teachers and teacher educators

Newall, Emma; Reiss, Michael J; (2023) Evolution hesitancy: challenges and a way forward for teachers and teacher educators. Evolution: Education and Outreach , 16 , Article 5. 10.1186/s12052-023-00183-9. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: It has long been acknowledged that evolution is a difficult topic for many students, partly because of the conceptual demands it makes, and partly because for some students an acceptance of evolution conflicts with their religious beliefs. The study we report on here was designed to see if there were additional reasons why evolution might be a difficult topic for certain students. RESULTS: Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with seventeen adults studying for education qualifications, we show that evolution is a difficult topic for certain people because it can give rise to existential concerns. Thematic content analysis of interview transcripts revealed six themes associated with existential concerns: time, identity, death, responsibility/freedom, meaninglessness, and isolation. Analysis revealed that the topic of evolution frequently gave rise to feelings of disquiet. CONCLUSIONS: Because it concerns issues to do with death, extinction and change, evolution can be deeply unsettling for many people, even if they may have difficulty articulating why this is so. Teachers when they teach evolution therefore need to consider at least three overlapping constituencies who may find evolution difficult: those for whom it is cognitively challenging; those who reject aspects of evolution on religious grounds; and those who are uncomfortable with evolution for existential reasons. Teacher educators need to decide how best to prepare new teachers for these challenges. We argue that a pedagogy based on two approaches—treating evolution as a conceptually demanding topic and treating it as a sensitive issue—may provide a way forward.

Type:	Article
Title:	Evolution hesitancy: challenges and a way forward for teachers and teacher educators
Open access status:	An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI:	10.1186/s12052-023-00183-9
Publisher version:	https://doi.org/10.1186/s12052-023-00183-9
Language:	English
Additional information:	© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Keywords:	Evolution hesitancy, Existentialism, Evolution pedagogy, Sensitive issues
UCL classification:	UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
URI:	https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10167642