Is Oklahoma really OK? A regional study of the prevalence of biological evolution-related misconceptions held by introductory biology teachers

Table 1 Teacher profile

Demographic variable	Variables	n	%^a	BEL-MIS
Gender	Female	36	47.4	93.39
	Male	40	52.6	87.48
Highest earned degree	Bachelor’s	47	61.8	90.00
	Master’s	26	34.2	89.73
	Doctorate	3	3.9	99.33
Bachelor’s degree major	Biology	22	28.9	95.45
	Non-biology science	18	23.7	90.22
	Science education	22	28.9	90.04
	Non-science	12	15.8	82.75
	No response	2	2.6	-
Years’ teaching experience	0 to 5	14	18.4	89.07
	6 to 10	13	17.1	91.69
	11 to 15	14	18.4	90.71
	16 to 20	14	18.4	88.71
	>20	21	27.6	90.95
College evolution emphasis	Highly emphasized	11	14.5	91.64
	Moderately emphasized	36	47.4	93.31
	Slightly emphasized	22	28.9	86.68
	Not emphasized	6	7.9	82.17
Knowledge self-rating	Excellent	17	22.4	92.18
	Good	34	44.7	94.35_b
	Average	21	27.6	83.95
	Fair	4	5.3	80.75_b
	Poor	0	0.0	-
Teaching hours dedicated	0	2	2.6	77.00_cd
	1 to 5	27	35.5	86.56
	6 to 10	19	25.0	89.84_c
	11 to 15	13	17.1	89.08
	>15	14	18.4	99.86_d
Average daily membership	4451.85 to 485.57	14	10.0	95.36
	482.10 to 242.95	18	23.3	91.78
	242.30 to 134.10	9	16.7	93.22
	132.10 to 78.11	11	18.3	91.55
	77.73 to 14.85	13	21.7	88.54
	No response	11	14.5	-
Urban-centric classification	City	2	3.3	103.50
	Suburban	3	5.0	96.33
	Town	19	26.7	92.53
	Rural	41	65.0	90.98
	No response	11	14.5	-

Maximum index score is 115. Those BEL-MIS possessing the same subscript are significantly different at P <0.05. ^aPercentages may not total 100 due to rounding. BEL-MIS, Biological Evolution Literacy Survey mean index score.

ISSN: 1936-6434