Correlations Between Tree Thinking and Acceptance of Evolution in Introductory Biology Students

Abstract

Background: Tree thinking refers to an approach to evolution education that emphasizes reading and interpreting phylogenetic trees. We studied the relationship between introductory biology students' tree-thinking ability and their acceptance of evolutionary theory. Results:Comparisons between a semester in which interpretation of phylogenetic trees and related concepts were taught as stand-alone topics versus one in which tree thinking was used as an organizing framework for the course curriculum found significant increases in students' ability to read and interpret trees in both semesters, but only in the tree thinking semester was there a significant increase in students' scores on the Measure of the Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument. Over four additional semesters, the Tree Thinking Concept Inventory (TTCI) was used to assess students' tree-thinking abilities before and after the course. We found that MATE posttest scores correlated with gains in tree-thinking ability. These increases in MATE posttest scores were predominantly due to students' reporting greater acceptance of the scientific evidence supporting evolutionary theory. Conclusions:Increased acceptance of evolution in a tree-thinking versus non-tree-thinking semester and significant positive correlations between TTCI and MATE scores indicate there is a relationship between tree-thinking ability and acceptance of evolution. This result suggests that, as a framework to connect different forms of data and investigate a variety of biological phenomena, tree thinking can promote greater acceptance of the evidence and scientific validity of evolutionary theory in introductory biology students.

How strongly does statistical reasoning influence knowledge and acceptance of evolution?

“…Correlation coefficients between evolutionary knowledge and acceptance of evolution as found in this study (light gray) and other published studies (dark gray) (Athanasiou & Papadopoulou, ; Athanasiou et al, 2012; Barnes et al, ; Cavallo & McCall, ; Cofré et al, ; Coleman et al, ; Deniz et al, ; Dunk et al, ; Gibson & Hoefnagels, ; Glaze et al, ; Graf & Soran, ; Gregory & Ellis, ; Großschedl et al, ; Ha et al, , ; Kim & Nehm, 2011; Mead et al, ; Nehm et al, ; Nadelson & Sinatra, ; Nadelson & Southerland, ; Peker et al, ; Rice et al, 2015; Romine et al, ; Rutledge & Warden, ; Sinatra et al, 2003; Trani, ), and correlations between statistical reasoning (Randomness and Probability test in the context of Evolution/Randomness and Probability test in the context of Mathematics [RaProEvo/RaProMath]) with acceptance of evolution (black). Numbers appearing more than once are indicating different cohorts or different instruments within a study.…”

Do Biology Majors Really Differ from Non–STEM Majors?

“…However, certain politically polarizing topics (e.g., human evolution, anthropogenic climate change) might be viewed differently by nonmajors ( Paz-y-Miño and Espinosa, 2009 ) and therefore should be approached with care ( Miller et al , 2006 ; Kahan, 2010 ; McCright and Dunlap, 2011 ; Barnes and Brownell, 2016 ; Barnes et al , 2017 ). Fortunately, several recent works address the teaching of evolution ( O’Brien et al , 2009 ; Abraham et al , 2012 ; Schauer et al , 2014 ; Gibson and Hoefnagels, 2015 ; Manwaring et al , 2015 ) and climate change ( Cordero et al , 2008 ; McCaffrey and Buhr, 2009 ; Svihla and Linn, 2012 ) and can guide instructors in navigating these socially controversial topics. For example, Barnes et al (2017) found that introducing students to practicing scientists who are themselves openly religious can alleviate student concerns about an incompatibility between evolutionary biology and religious convictions.…”

Understanding the tree of life: an overview of tree-reading skill frameworks

“…Some authors describe tree-thinking as a mere set of skills needed to extract relationship information from an evolutionary tree (O'Hara 1997), while others describe it as a "habit of mind that uses the history of life on earth as its first line of evidence while providing students with a hierarchical view of the natural world" (Catley and Novick 2008) or as "the ability to visualize evolution in tree form and to use tree diagrams to communicate and analyze evolutionary phenomena" (Baum and Smith 2013). There is no unifying definition of the term tree-thinking, but the various definitions and descriptions tend to resemble each other closely (Blacquiere and Hoese 2016;Catley et al 2012;Gibson and Hoefnagels 2015;Halverson et al 2011). The common idea across the different definitions is that tree-thinking is needed in order to be able to extract information about relationships from an evolutionary tree, to make conclusions and inferences about the displayed course of evolution, and to construct evolutionary trees from the given data.…”