What Effect Does Education Level Have on Students’ Understanding of Evolutionary Theory?

Evolution by means of natural selection, Charles Darwin’s revolutionary idea detailed in his book On the Origin of Species (1859), is considered the underlying principle of biology today. Despite its importance, high school and college students still hold misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding evolutionary theory. These issues may arise from the lack of secondary school curricula devoted to the subject. There are no universal standards for high school teachers to follow, and those students who are not biology majors in college may never be exposed to or fully understand Darwin’s theory of evolution. The purpose of this thesis is to determine what effect, if any, education level has on students’ understanding of evolutionary theory. To research this, high school seniors and college senior biology and non-biology majors were given a survey to assess their understanding of fundamental evolutionary concepts. Using a two-way analysis of variance, I found that declared major in college had more of an effect on student’s understanding of evolutionary theory than education level did