Preservice Science Teachers’ Misconceptions About Evolution

Abstract

Misconceptions/misunderstandings are a basic problem often encountered in topics in education. “Misunderstandings” commonly observed about evolution makes it difficult for biology teachers to teach this topic. Reasons that are related to teachers are a basic source of misconceptions. Misconceptions can increase incrementally if their source is teachers. This study aims to determine the nature and scope of nonscientific views about evolution in preservice science teachers. An important step in correcting misconceptions or misunderstandings is to first determine the frequently observed misunderstandings. This study investigates and compares the misconceptions of students who have completed an evolution course and those who have not. The results showed that an evolution course considerably decreased the misconceptions. The most frequently observed misconceptions were; considering evolution as the effort to bring living things to perfection, associating evolution only with Darwin, identifying evolution with metamorphosis, thinking that living things evolve to accommodate, and having only a human-focused perspective about evolution. The idea that believing in evolution is an alternative to believing in a creator; that it is not possible for someone to believe in a creator and, at the same time in evolution, or vice versa also appeared as a noteworthy misconception revealed by the study.