Evolution is considered a controversial topic and has been met with much debate, concern
and conflict in its inclusion in the school curriculum. The aim of his investigation was to
determine what conceptual change occurs when learners are taught evolution and what
factors influence this change looking in particular at learners’ conceptual ecologies and the
role that religious beliefs play. The attitudes of the learners, teachers and school community
towards evolution were also investigated. A mixed methods approach was used because it
obtains a fuller picture and provides a deeper understanding of a phenomenon by
combining the strengths of qualitative and quantitative research. Learners were given a pre-and
post-instruction survey and concept mapping task, and a sample of learners were
interviewed post instruction. Results showed that learners made significant conceptual
changes and that religious beliefs are the main contributing factor to learners’ conceptual
ecologies and the conceptual changes that occurred. An overall negative attitude was
initially experienced from learners, but this developed into curiosity and interest. Teachers
had a positive attitude towards teaching evolution. This study also highlights the notion that
conceptual change theory is not sufficient in explaining how all learners learn evolution.
Learners that experience cultural conflict follow various other learning paths explained by
collateral learning. Collateral learning is considered because it more accurately explains how
religious learners learn evolution. Collateral learning puts emphasis on the importance that
learner cultures have in learning and highlights the importance of teaching for cultural
border crossing / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/8843 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Schroder, Debra Daphne. |
| Contributors | Dempster, Edith R. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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