Analysis of Secondary School Pupils' Knowledge and the Interpretation of Evolutionary Biology by Teachers in the Czech Republic, England and Scotland

An evolution is considered the single greatest unifying theory in biology. Therefore, evolution is a crucial topic from the perspective of didactics of biology because it reaches contemporary paradigm of science education. These doctoral thesis deals with the educative aspects in the field of evolutionary biology. Given the fact that educational content and understanding of causal patterns in science may be influenced by the sociocultural background, the whole research is carried out in comparison with Great Britain. The main aim of the thesis is carried out three successive analyzes. First, the occurrence and the content of definitions of evolutionary terms in Czech and British science or biology textbooks have been compared (16 Czech and 16 British textbooks). Data were evaluated using content analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis. Subsequently, a comparison of teaching evolution has been made using a questionnaire survey (350 Czech and 122 British teachers) and interviews (10 Czech and 7 British teachers). Finally, a comparison of the Czech and British pupils' knowledge and opinions on specific evolutionary topics were obtained via a questionnaire (964 Czech and 97 British pupils). Statistically significant differences between Czech and British respondents were verified by Chi-square test..