Concept inventories as a resource for teaching evolution

Understanding evolution is critical to learning biology, but few college instructors take advantage of the body of peer-reviewed literature that can inform evolution teaching and assessment. Here we summarize the peer-reviewed papers on tools to assess student learning of evolutionary concepts. Thes...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEvolution education & outreach Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 1 - 11
Main Authors Furrow, Robert E., Hsu, Jeremy L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 2019
Springer Nature B.V
BMC
Subjects
Assessment
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Concept inventories
Curriculum and Education
Education
Evolution
Evolution Assessment
Evolutionary Biology
Learning
Learning and Instruction
Learning goals
Life Sciences
Reviews
Sociology of Education
Teaching
Teaching and Teacher Education
Learning goals
Concept inventories
Evolution
Assessment
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Summary:Understanding evolution is critical to learning biology, but few college instructors take advantage of the body of peer-reviewed literature that can inform evolution teaching and assessment. Here we summarize the peer-reviewed papers on tools to assess student learning of evolutionary concepts. These published concept inventories provide a resource for instructors to design courses, gauge student preparation, identify key misconceptions in their student population, and measure the impact of a lesson, course, or broader curriculum on student learning. Because these inventories vary in their format, target audience, and degree of validation, we outline and explain these features. In addition to summarizing the published concept inventories on topics within evolution, we lay out a flexible framework to help instructors decide when and how to use them.
ISSN:1936-6426
1936-6434
DOI:10.1186/s12052-018-0092-8