European first-year university students accept evolution but lack substantial knowledge about it: a standardized European cross-country assessment

Table 6 Mixed effect models

	Model 1			Model 2			Model 3			Model 4			Model 5
	Est. (b)	SE	CI₉₅	Est. (b)	SE	CI₉₅	Est. (b)	SE	CI₉₅	Est. (b)	SE	CI₉₅	Est. (b)	SE	CI₉₅
Fixed effects
Intercept	34.18***	1.3	[31.64; 36.72]	31.72***	1.3	[29.16; 34.26]	29.37***	1.28	[26.86; 31.85]	33.36***	1.23	[30.98; 35.75]	33.12***	1.23	[30.69; 35.54]
Age	− 0.04	0.06	[− 0.17; 0.08]	− 0.04	0.06	[− 0.16; 0.09]	0	0.06	[− 0.12; 0.13]	− 0.01	0.06	[− 0.13; 0.11]	0	0.06	[− 0.12; 0.12]
Sex (male)
Female	− 1.15***	0.13	[− 1.41; − 0.89]	− 1.15***	0.13	[− 1.42; − 0.90]	− 0.88***	0.13	[− 1.14; − 0.63]	− 0.59***	0.13	[− 0.84; − 0.35]	− 0.61***	0.13	[− 0.86; − 0.36]
University program (bio-related)
Non-biology				− 0.33	0.18	[− 0.68; 0.01]	− 0.06	0.17	[− 0.40; 0.28]	− 0.03	0.17	[− 0.36; 0.30]	− 0.01	0.17	[− 0.34; 0.32]
Interest in biology				0.47***	0.05	[0.38; 0.56]	0.37***	0.05	[0.27; 0.46]	0.32***	0.05	[0.23; 0.41]	0.32***	0.05	[0.23; 0.41]
Knowledge							0.37***	0.03	[0.31; 0.42]	0.24***	0.03	[0.19; 0.29]	0.23***	0.03	[0.18; 0.29]
Religious faith										− 0.12***	0	[− 0.12; − 0.11]	− 0.11***	0.01	[− 0.12; − 0.10]
Denomination (none)
Protestant													− 0.67**	0.25	[− 1.18; − 0.19]
Christian free Churches													− 0.53	0.28	[− 1.07; 0.01]
Catholic													0.29	0.18	[− 0.06; 0.65]
Orthodox													0.09	0.26	[− 0.41; 0.60]
Muslim													− 1.91***	0.45	[− 2.78; − 1.00]
Other													− 0.27	0.26	[− 0.77; 0.23]

Dependent variable: acceptance of evolution (ATEVO). Fixed effects: age, sex (reference male), university program (reference biology-related), interest in biology, knowledge about evolution (KAEVO), religious faith (PERF), denomination (reference none). Random intercept: country. Estimates (Est.), standard-errors (SE) and 95% confidence intervals (CI₉₅) are reported for all fixed effects. Standard deviation (Std. Dev.) and 95% confidence intervals (CI₉₅) are reported for variance components. Akaike information criterion (AIC), Bayesian information criterion (BIC), intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) as well as LRT results (\({X}^{2}\)) are reported for all models. n_students = 6227; n_countries = 20. *** p < .0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05

ISSN: 1936-6434