Knowledge of human evolution among the 8 th and 9 th grade primary school pupils in Štajerska

Evolution is the concept in biological science which gives meaning to all the rest biological knowledge and therefore understanding of evolution presents the basis for the understanding of the living world, the functioning of organisms, ecosystems and the planet as an integrated system. Just understanding and not the factographic knowledge is these quality knowledge that all biological teacher would like to pass on their students, so the quality of the teaching of evolution and especially of human evolution in primary schools is also essential because the primary school is the only compulsory school in Slovenia. The aim of our research was to gain inside into the knowledge of 8th and 9th class pupils about the evolution of man. We wanted to check if the knowledge is associated with gender, age, school that pupils attend. We were also interested in whether our pupils hold the same misconceptions as well as pupils in foreign countries, we came across in the literature. The research was carried out in the 8th and 9th class at three elementary schools in Štajerska. It brought together 243 pupils. We prepared an anonymous test of knowledge, which was composed of three parts. In the first we collected demographic data, in the second part we examined knowledge about the evolution of man with multiple choice questions, In the third part, the pupils on the four level of a Likert scale decided to what extent they agree with the given statements. For ease of interpretation, the questions were divided into seven groups: temporal and local placement of events on the evolution of man, evolution, genetics, creationism, checking of pupils' general knowledge and checking of pupils' misconceptions. We found that the knowledge of pupils in the field of human evolution is not satisfactory, as in the test of knowledge they achieved an average of 58,9 % success, there are almost no differencies in knowledge about the evolution of man among boys and girls of different schools. We also found that both pupils of 8th and 9th class have some typical misconceptions about the evolution of man