In this master thesis, we focused on human evolution, an important topic in the high school educational programme. After a literature review, we identified common challenges associated with teaching and understanding of human evolution, such as misconceptions, religious beliefs, distrust in science, inadequate teacher knowledge, and inappropriate curriculum. We described these challenges in more detail and suggested possible improvements based on the literature. For this work, we were particularly interested in how selected demographic factors (gender, parental education level, prior participation in human evolution lectures in school, individual's religious beliefs, and individual's interest in natural sciences) influence the understanding of human evolution in students of all four grades of the selected high school. We distributed anonymous questionnaires to students that were comparable to questionnaires used in previous research. We statistically evaluated the results and concluded that students at the selected high school demonstrated satisfactory knowledge about human evolution, which was similar to results of comparable previous research. We found that the mother's education, interest in natural sciences, previous participation in lectures on human evolution in high school, and the individual's religious beliefs had a statistically significant effect on the students' knowledge about human evolution. We found that misconceptions regarding the timing of events, evolutionary genetics, and knowledge about Neanderthals were widespread. The results of our work could help teachers improve their lectures, as we revealed some weaknesses and misconceptions in students' knowledge about human evolution.
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