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Table 5 Explaining evolutionary change: pre- and post-visit means and change scores across four organisms on closed-ended questionnaire for adult, youth, and child museum visitors

From: Changing Museum Visitors’ Conceptions of Evolution

Explanation Overall sample (N = 64) Children (n = 21) Youth (n = 13) Adults (n = 30)
11–13 years 14–18 years 19+ years
ER—evolutionary term (mean (SD))
 Pre-visit 4.15 (0.89) 3.92 (0.86) 4.23 (1.12) 4.28 (0.80)
 Post-visit 4.39 (0.94) 4.13 (1.00) 4.42 (1.09) 4.55 (0.82)
 Change score 0.23*** (0.55) 0.21 (0.79) 0.19* (0.27) 0.27** (0.44)
ER—common descent (mean (SD))
 Pre-visit 4.08 (0.71) 4.02 (0.70) 4.19 (0.68) 4.08 (0.74)
 Post-visit 4.46 (0.66) 4.45 (0.54) 4.42 (0.67) 4.49 (0.75)
 Change score 0.38*** (0.50) 0.43** (0.58) 0.23* (0.33) 0.42*** (0.50)
ER—selection (mean (SD))
 Pre-visit 4.15 (0.71) 3.75 (0.57) 4.46 (0.54) 4.29 (0.75)
 Post-visit 4.47 (0.63) 4.25 (0.72) 4.52 (0.59) 4.60 (0.56)
 Change score 0.32*** (0.50) 0.50*** (0.60) 0.06 (0.36) 0.31*** (0.44)
IR—need-based adaptation (mean (SD))
 Pre-visit 4.27 (0.61) 4.23 (0.68) 4.50 (0.41) 4.21 (0.63)
 Post-visit 4.39 (0.72) 4.24 (0.78) 4.56 (0.46) 4.42 (0.76)
 Change score 0.11* (0.44) 0.01(0.41) 0.06 (0.21) 0.21* (0.52)
IR—desire-based change (mean (SD))
 Pre-visit mean 2.91 (1.17) 3.23 (0.87) 3.12 (1.22) 2.61 (1.29)
 Post-visit 2.71 (1.26) 3.18 (1.20) 2.96 (1.27) 2.28 (1.20)
 Change-score −0.20* (0.96) −0.05 (0.96) −0.15 (0.77) −0.33* (1.03)
IR—proximate cause (mean (SD))
 Pre-visit 1.97 (0.69) 2.07 (0.80) 2.04 (0.80) 1.88 (0.56)
 Post-visit 1.89 (0.87) 2.24 (1.07) 1.81 (0.87) 1.68 (0.64)
 Change score −0.09 (0.57) 0.17 (0.57) −0.23 (0.54) −0.20* (0.54)
CR—intentional design (mean (SD))
 Pre-visit 2.42 (1.04) 2.95 (0.92) 2.33 (1.23) 2.09 (0.92)
 Post-visit 2.32 (1.14) 2.94 (0.96) 2.13 (1.14) 1.96 (1.11)
 Change score −0.11 (0.66) −0.01(0.58) −0.19 (0.49) −0.13 (0.77)
  1. ER evolutionary reasoning, IR intuitive reasoning, CR creationist reasoning
  2. *p ≤ 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001