Development and validation of a framework for the assessment of school curricula on the presence of evolutionary concepts (FACE)

Sá-Pinto, Xana (author), Torkar, Gregor (author), Gregorčič, Tanja (author), Mavrikaki, Evangelia (author)

Evolution is a key concept of biology, fundamental to understand the world and address important societal problems, but research studies show that it is still not widely understood and accepted. Several factors are known to influence evolution acceptance and understanding, but little information is available regarding the impacts of the curriculum on these aspects. Very few curricula have been examined to assess the coverage of biological evolution. The available studies do not allow comparative analyses, due to the different methodologies employed by the authors. However, such an analysis would be useful for research purposes and for the development of appropriate educational poli‑cies to address the problem of a lack of evolution acceptance in some countries. In this paper we describe the steps through which we developed a valid and reliable instrument for curricula analysis known as FACE: “Framework to Assess the Coverage of biological Evolution by school curricula.” This framework was developed based on the “Under‑standing Evolution Conceptual Framework” (UECF). After an initial pilot study, our framework was reformulated based on identified issues and experts’ opinions. To generate validity and reliability evidence in support of the framework, it was applied to four European countries’ curricula. For each country, a team of a minimum of two national and two for‑eign coders worked independently to assess the curriculum using this framework for content analysis. Reliability evi‑dence was estimated using Krippendorf ’s alpha and resulted in appropriate values for coding the examined curricula. Some issues that coders faced during the analysis were discussed and, to ensure better reliability for future research‑ers, additional guidelines and one extra category were included in the framework. The final version of the framework includes six categories and 34 subcategories. FACE is a useful tool for the analysis and the comparison of curricula and school textbooks regarding the coverage of evolution, and such results can guide curricula development.

• Language: English
• Keywords: curricula analysis, evolution education, content analysis, learning goals
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publication date: 01.01.2021
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 27 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 14, art. 3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-125226
• UDC: 373.32.016:50
• ISSN on article: 1936-6434
• DOI: 10.1186/s12052-021-00142-2
• COBISS.SI-ID: 53890051

Note

V datoteki članka je v glavi vseh strani v podatkih za citiranje članka naveden napačen podatek za številko članka (1).

• Publication date in RUL: 22.03.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Evolution : education and outreach
• Shortened title: Evolution
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• ISSN: 1936-6434
• COBISS.SI-ID: 516089625

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: evolucija, kurikulum, inštrument, analiza, učni cilji