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Evolution is one of the most important concepts in biology, but it is rejected by a substantial percentage of religious students due to a perceived conflict with their religious beliefs. The use of religious cultural competence in evolution education (ReCCEE) has been shown to effectively increase evolution acceptance among religious students during in-person instruction, but there is no research that we know of that indicates the effectiveness of these practices during online instruction. In this study, we explored the efficacy of online culturally competent practices for religious students on students' evolution understanding, evolution acceptance, and comfort learning evolution at a religious university. Before and after evolution instruction, we surveyed 178 students in online introductory biology courses and compared these student outcomes to 201 students in the same instructor's in-person introductory biology courses. We found that evolution acceptance and understanding increased in online classes with culturally competent practices, and these gains were similar to those observed in the in-person courses. Despite these similarities, we found that students were more comfortable learning evolution in person than online, but this difference was small. Our findings suggest that the use of culturally competent practices online can be as effective as their use for in-person instruction for improving students' attitudes toward evolution, but in-person instruction may be more effective for cultivating students' comfort while learning evolution.

Learning about evolution is a foundational part of biology education, but most current studies that explore college student evolution education are conducted at universities. However, community college students tend to be more diverse in characteristics shown to be related to evolution education outcomes. To explore how studies involving university students may generalize to community college students, we surveyed students from seven community college (n = 202) and nine university (n = 2288) classes. We measured students' evolution interest, acceptance, and understanding, and for religious students, we measured their perceived conflict between their religions and evolution. Controlling for state and major, we found that community college students had similar levels of evolution interest as university students but perceived greater conflict between their religions and evolution. Further, community college students had lower evolution understanding and acceptance compared with university students. Religiosity was a strong factor predicting community college and university students' evolution acceptance. However, unique to community college students, evolution understanding was not related to their macroevolution or human evolution acceptance. This indicates that, although some results between community college and university students are similar, there are differences that have implications for evolution instruction that warrant the need for more evolution education research at community colleges.

Hundreds of articles have explored the extent to which individuals accept evolution, and the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) is the most often used survey. However, research indicates the MATE has limitations, and it has not been updated since its creation more than 20 years ago. In this study, we revised the MATE using information from cognitive interviews with 62 students that revealed response process errors with the original instrument. We found that students answered items on the MATE based on constructs other than their acceptance of evolution, which led to answer choices that did not fully align with their actual acceptance. Students answered items based on their understanding of evolution and the nature of science and different definitions of evolution. We revised items on the MATE, conducted 29 cognitive interviews on the revised version, and administered it to 2881 students in 22 classes. We provide response process validity evidence for the new measure through cognitive interviews with students, structural validity through a Rasch dimensionality analysis, and concurrent validity evidence through correlations with other measures of evolution acceptance. Researchers can now measure student evolution acceptance using this new version of the survey, which we have called the MATE 2.0.

Evolution is controversial among students and religiosity, religious affiliation, understanding of evolution, and demographics are predictors of evolution acceptance. However, quantitative research has not explored the unique impact of student perceived conflict between their religion and evolution as a major factor influencing evolution acceptance. We developed an instrument with validity evidence called "Perceived Conflict between Evolution and Religion" (PCoRE). Using this measure, we find that, among students in 26 biology courses in 11 states, adding student perceived conflict between their religion and evolution to linear mixed models more than doubled the capacity of the models to predict evolution acceptance compared with models that only included religiosity, religious affiliation, understanding of evolution, and demographics. Student perceived conflict between evolution and their religion was the strongest predictor of evolution acceptance among all variables and mediated the impact of religiosity on evolution acceptance. These results build upon prior literature that suggests that reducing perceived conflict between students' religious beliefs and evolution can help raise evolution acceptance levels. Further, these results indicate that including measures of perceived conflict between religion and evolution in evolution acceptance studies in the future is important.

The evolution education experiences of students of color represent an emerging area of research, because past inquiries indicate these students have differential outcomes, such as lower evolution acceptance and severe underrepresentation in evolutionary biology. Religion is often an important support for students of color who are navigating a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics culture that privileges White nonreligious students. For instance, religion helps mitigate the negative effects of racism, but religious students are also more likely to experience conflict when learning evolution. In this nationwide study, we examined the extent to which strong religiosity among students of color can explain their lower evolution acceptance. We surveyed students in 77 college biology courses across 17 states and found that Black/African American students tend to be more religious and less accepting of evolution than any other racial/ethnic identity group and that Hispanic students tend to be slightly more religious and slightly less accepting of evolution than White students. Importantly, we find that religious background is an important factor associated with Black and Hispanic students' lower levels of evolution acceptance. This study suggests that the biology community should become more inclusive of Christian religious students if it wishes to foster inclusive evolution education for Black and Hispanic students.

Although many scientists agree that evolution does not make claims about God/god(s), students might assume that evolution is atheistic, and this may lead to lower evolution acceptance. In study 1, we surveyed 1081 college biology students at one university about their religiosity and evolution acceptance and asked what religious ideas someone would have to reject if that person were to accept evolution. Approximately half of students wrote that a person cannot believe in God/religion and accept evolution, indicating that these students may have atheistic perceptions of evolution. Religiosity was not related to whether a student wrote that evolution is atheistic, but writing that evolution is atheistic was associated with lower evolution acceptance among the more religious students. In study 2, we collected data from 1898 students in eight states in the United States using a closed-ended survey. We found that 56.5% of students perceived that evolution is atheistic even when they were given the option to choose an agnostic perception of evolution. Further, among the most religious students, those who thought evolution is atheistic were less accepting of evolution, less comfortable learning evolution, and perceived greater conflict between their personal religious beliefs and evolution than those who thought evolution is agnostic.

Evolution remains a controversial issue in the United States, particularly for evangelical Christians, who as a group have been a key player in anti-evolution education legislation. Religious cultural competence can be effective in decreasing undergraduate biology students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution. However, the impact on student populations who are particularly resistant to evolution is unknown. We explored the efficacy of culturally competent evolution education practices adapted for biology students in a genetics course at an evangelical Christian university. This included the presence of an instructor as a religious scientist role model who accepts evolution, and the use of the book "The Language of God." We explored how this curriculum affected students' conceptions of religion and evolution using pre- and post-surveys. We found a differential impact of the curriculum: 31% of the students who indicated that there was a conflict between their religious beliefs and evolution changed their conceptions to be more in line with scientific evidence, but the remaining 69% did not. We describe reasons why, including students' perceptions of "The Language of God." This research indicates the challenges of implementing culturally competent evolution education for evangelical students, given their strong commitment to biblical literalism and their lower likelihood of being convinced by scientific evidence for evolution.

The benefits of student-centered active-learning approaches are well established, but this evidence has not directly translated into instructors adopting these evidence-based methods in higher education. To date, promoting and sustaining pedagogical change through different initiatives has proven difficult, but research on pedagogical change is advancing. To this end, we examine pedagogical behaviors through a cultural evolutionary model that stresses the global nature of the issue, the generational time that change requires, and complications introduced by academic career trajectories. We first provide an introduction to cultural evolutionary theory before describing our model, which focuses on how cultural transmission processes and selection events at different career phases shape not only who teaches in higher education, but also how they choose to teach. We leverage our model to make suggestions for expediting change in higher education. This includes reforming pedagogy in departments that produce PhD students with the greatest chance of obtaining tenure-track positions.

A new assessment tool, Ecology and Evolution--Measuring Achievement and Progression in Science or EcoEvo-MAPS, measures student thinking in ecology and evolution during an undergraduate course of study. EcoEvo-MAPS targets foundational concepts in ecology and evolution and uses a novel approach that asks students to evaluate a series of predictions, conclusions, or interpretations as likely or unlikely to be true given a specific scenario. We collected evidence of validity and reliability for EcoEvo-MAPS through an iterative process of faculty review, student interviews, and analyses of assessment data from more than 3000 students at 34 associate's-, bachelor's-, master's-, and doctoral-granting institutions. The 63 likely/unlikely statements range in difficulty and target student understanding of key concepts aligned with the "Vision and Change" report. This assessment provides departments with a tool to measure student thinking at different time points in the curriculum and provides data that can be used to inform curricular and instructional modifications.

Students' religious beliefs and religious cultures have been shown to be the main factors predicting whether they will accept evolution, yet college biology instructors teaching evolution at public institutions often have religious beliefs and cultures that are different from their religious students. This difference in religious beliefs and cultures may be a barrier to effective evolution education. To explore when evolution instructors have similar religious cultures and beliefs as their students, we interviewed 32 evolution instructors at Christian universities nationwide about their practices and experiences teaching evolution. Christian university instructors emphasized teaching for acceptance of evolution while holding an inclusive teaching philosophy that they perceived led to a safe environment for students. Additionally, almost all instructors reported using practices that have been shown to increase student acceptance of evolution and reduce student conflict between evolution and religion. Further, we found that these instructors perceived that their own religious backgrounds have guided their decisions to teach evolution to their students in a culturally competent way. We discuss how these data, combined with past research literature on public college instructors, indicate that cultural competence could be a useful new framework for promoting effective evolution education in higher education institutions.

Low acceptance of evolution among undergraduate students is common and is best predicted by religious beliefs. Decreasing students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution could increase their acceptance of evolution. However, college biology instructors may struggle with trying to decrease students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution because of differences in the religious cultures and beliefs of instructors and students. Although a large percentage of undergraduate students in evolution courses are religious, most instructors teaching evolution are not. To consider differences between the secular culture of many college instructors and the religious culture of many students, we propose using a lens of cultural competence to create effective evolution education. Cultural competence is the ability of individuals from one culture (in this case, primarily secular instructors who are teaching evolution) to bridge cultural differences and effectively communicate with individuals from a different culture (in this case, primarily religious undergraduate biology students). We call this new framework Religious Cultural Competence in Evolution Education (ReCCEE). In this essay, we describe a suite of culturally competent practices that can help instructors reduce students' perceived conflict between evolution and religion, increase students' acceptance of evolution, and help create more inclusive undergraduate biology classrooms.

A major research thrust in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is focused on how to retain students as STEM majors. The accumulation of seemingly insignificant negative experiences in STEM classes can, over time, lead STEM students to have a low sense of belonging in their disciplines, and this can lead to lower retention. In this paper, we explore how Judeo-Christian students in biology have experiences related to their religious identities that could impact their retention in biology. In 28 interviews with Judeo-Christian students taking undergraduate biology classes, students reported a religious identity that can conflict with the secular culture and content of biology. Some students felt that, because they are religious, they fall within a minority in their classes and would not be seen as credible within the biology community. Students reported adverse experiences when instructors had negative dispositions toward religion and when instructors were rigid in their instructional practices when teaching evolution. These data suggest that this may be a population susceptible to experiences of cultural conflict between their religious identities and their STEM identities, which could have implications for retention. We argue that more research should explore how Judeo-Christian students' experiences in biology classes influence their sense of belonging and retention.

Evolution is a core concept of biology, and yet many college biology students do not accept evolution because of their religious beliefs. However, we do not currently know how instructors perceive their role in helping students accept evolution or how they address the perceived conflict between religion and evolution when they teach evolution. This study explores instructor practices and beliefs related to mitigating students' perceived conflict between religion and evolution. Interviews with 32 instructors revealed that many instructors do not believe it is their goal to help students accept evolution and that most instructors do not address the perceived conflict between religion and evolution. Instructors cited many barriers to discussing religion in the context of evolution in their classes, most notably the instructors' own personal beliefs that religion and evolution may be incompatible. These data are exploratory and are intended to stimulate a series of questions about how we as college biology instructors teach evolution.

Teaching evolution using medical examples can be a particularly effective strategy for motivating students to learn evolutionary principles, especially students interested in pursuing medical and allied health careers. Research in the area of evolutionary medicine has expanded the number of ways in which evolution informs health and disease, providing many new and less widely known contexts that can be adopted for classroom use. However, many instructors do not have time to locate or create classroom materials about evolutionary medicine. To address this need, we have created EvMedEd, a resource repository to help instructors who want to integrate more medical examples into their evolution instruction or instructors who are teaching a course on evolutionary medicine. Some resources are designed to be more appropriate for a high school or introductory biology audience, whereas others are more advanced. We encourage instructors to access this curated website and to share their own teaching materials with this community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]