College students' perceptions of the theory of evolution

النوع : Mémoire

Although a well corroborated scientific theory, the theory of evolution has cont inued to develop dilemmas for some individuals who have not easily been able to accommodate the concepts of this theory within their "cognitive culture". The re ason lies in the overlap of some ideas that the theory advocates with other soci al, epistemological, and religious beliefs. This study describes how eleven coll ege biology students who have taken a course about the theory evolution during t he spring semester of 2005 at the American University of Beirut perceive the rel ationship among their epistemological beliefs about science, their beliefs about religion, and their perception of nature and causality and their position regar ding the theory of evolution. It also compares the different positions of the st udents to that of the professor who taught the course. Questionnaires and semi-s tructured interviews were used to collect data. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the data and identify the various positions of the students and profess or. The students' positions ranged from complete acceptance to complete rejectio n of the theory of evolution. The results suggest that students' personal belief s should not be dismissed or underestimated when teaching the theory of evolutio n.