Evolution Assessment

The assessment of evolutionary understanding and acceptance play a central role in many evidence-based educational pursuits: uncovering how students and teachers think; measuring the impact of educational experiences in formal and informal settings; examining the growth of understanding through degree and certification programs; and quantifying the relationships between sociocultural factors and reasoning patterns. Indeed, many questions in the growing field of evolution education research rely on measures drawn from assessment tools. The U.S. National Research Council (2001, 2014) has emphasized the complexity of drawing valid inferences from assessment tasks, the need for continuing evaluation of assessment tools in diverse contexts, and the paucity of formative and next-generation assessments capable of measuring complex practices and learning progressions. Many research questions and methods inform assessment development, application, and evaluation, and we welcome researchers exploring any aspect of evolution assessment to submit papers to a Special Issue to be published in Evolution: Education and Outreach, now celebrating its ten-year anniversary.   

^Editorial
Evolution assessment: introduction to the special issue

Ross H. Nehm and Louise S. Mead

^{Evolution: Education and Outreach 2019 12:7
Published on: 21 February 2019}

 

^{Curriculum and education}
Concept inventories as a resource for teaching evolution 

Robert E. Furrow and Jeremy L. Hsu

^{Evolution: Education and Outreach 2019 12:2
Published on: 16 January 2019}

^Review
Applying measurement standards to evolution education assessment instruments

Louise S. Mead, Cory Kohn, Alexa Warwick and Kathryn Schwartz

^{Evolution: Education and Outreach 2019 12:5
Published on: 8 February 2019}

^{RESEARCH ARTICLE}
Testing validity inferences for Genetic Drift Inventory scores using Rasch modeling and item order analyses

Robyn E. Tornabene, Erik Lavington and Ross H. Nehm

^{Evolution: Education and Outreach 2019 11:6
Published on: 17 July 2018}

^{RESEARCH ARTICLE}
Measuring evolution acceptance using the GAENE: influences of gender, race, degree-plan, and instruction

Gena C. Sbeglia and Ross H. Nehm

^{Evolution: Education and Outreach 2019 11:18
Published on: 27 December 2018}

RESEARCH ARTICLE

A closer look at the items within three measures of evolution acceptance: analysis of the MATE, I-SEA, and GAENE as a single corpus of items

William L. Romine, Amber N. Todd and Emily M. Walter

^{Evolution: Education and Outreach 2019 11:17
Published on: 26 December 2018}

^{RESEARCH ARTICLE}
Different evolution acceptance instruments lead to different research findings​​​​​​​

M. Elizabeth Barnes, Hayley M. Dunlop, Emily A. Holt, Yi Zheng and Sara E. Brownell

^{Evolution: Education and Outreach 2019 12:4
Published on: 31 January 2019}

^{RESEARCH ARTICLE}
Do disciplinary contexts impact the learning of evolution? 

Elizabeth P. Beggrow and Gena C. Sbeglia

^{Evolution: Education and Outreach 2019 12:1
Published on: 9 January 2019}