Using different acceptance measures: The interplay of evolution acceptance, evolution understanding, and religious belief among German preservice biology teachers, secondary school students, and creationists

Abstract

Evolution understanding is often positively connected with magnitudes of evolution acceptance, whereas religiosity mostly interferes negatively. However, comparisons between studies and countries must be treated cautiously due to the diversity of used instruments and samples. This study aims to generate new evidence concerning the interplay of evolution acceptance, evolution understanding, and religious belief by comparing the results of preservice biology teachers, school students, and self-identified creationists answering several acceptance instruments (i.e., ATEVO, GAENE, I-SEA, and MATE) while using the same measurement for understanding and belief. Results of our regression analysis indicate that belief and understanding were significant predictors but often diminished after including the interaction term of belief and understanding. When gender is included in the model, this variable is often significant. The interaction term of belief and understanding was only significant for two instruments in the group of school students. For the creationists, gender appeared as the essential term. While relationship patterns of preservice biology teachers seldom seem to be impacted by the choice of acceptance instruments (at least in correlations and regressions using only belief and understanding), this is not true for our school students and creationists. Our findings indicate that the magnitude of understanding may not mutually be the exclusive factor for (non-)acceptance. Other factors, such as gender or religiosity, might be more prominent in people's attitudes toward (controversial) topics. Our study creates new insights into the interplay of acceptance, understanding, and belief, and we encourage researchers to carefully consider their choice of instruments.