Canadian Pre-Service Elementary Teachers' Conceptions of Biological Evolution and Evolution Education.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study explores pre-service elementary school teachers’ understandings of evolutionary science and their feelings and concerns about teaching evolution in Canadian elementary schools. Data were collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Most participants reported acceptance of evolution as a scientifically factual phenomenon, and almost three quarters of those who accepted evolution reported that they intend to include biological evolution in their elementary science teaching. A landscape of sensitivities related to participants’ decisions about teaching evolution emerged, including concerns regarding the religious beliefs of students and their parents, the pre-service teachers’ inadequate understanding of evolutionary science, and their lack of knowledge of related pedagogical techniques. This study calls for more effective training of future teachers in evolutionary science and for teachers to be professionally prepared to deal with potential social challenges and pressures regarding the teaching of evolution in elementary schools. CONCEPTIONS DES FUTURS ENSEIGNANTS CANADIENS À L’ÉLÉMENTAIRE SUR L’ÉVOLUTION BIOLOGIQUE ET L’ENSEIGNEMENT DE L’ÉVOLUTION Cette étude explore la compréhension des futurs enseignants à l’élémentaire de la science de l’évolution ainsi que leurs sentiments et préoccupations quant à l’enseignement de l’évolution dans les écoles primaires du Canada. Les données ont été recueillies au moyen d’un questionnaire et d’entrevues semi-structurées. La majorité des participants ont avalisé la conception de l’évolution comme phénomène factuel sur le plan scientifique, et presque trois quarts de ceux qui ont accepté cette conception ont affirmé qu’ils avaient l’intention d’inclure l’évolution biologique dans leur programme d’enseignement des sciences au niveau primaire. De ces données s’est dégagé un panorama de sensibilités liées à la décision des participants d’enseigner l’évolution, y compris des préoccupations concernant les croyances religieuses des élèves et de leurs parents, la compréhension imparfaite des futurs enseignants de la science de l’évolution et leur manque de connaissance quant aux techniques pédagogiques connexes. Cette étude réclame une formation plus efficace des futurs enseignants de la science de l’évolution et une préparation professionnelle des enseignants pour qu’ils puissent affronter les pressions et les défis sociaux liés à l’enseignement de l’évolution dans les écoles élémentaires.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.013 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".