The curriculum specifies human evolution with only one single curriculum objective; therefore, the depth and the quantity of discussion depend on the teachers. When teaching human evolution, it is most important for the teacher to consider students’ misconceptions. The objective of this thesis was to obtain an overview of 8th and 9th grade pupils’ knowledge on the human evolution and to find out if this knowledge is satisfactory. Likewise, we wanted to know whether the knowledge differs between students of different schools, classes and genders. We carried out the survey between 2 primary schools in the Dolenjska region: Trebnje Primary School and Primary School Dr. Pavla Lunačka Šentrupert. Students used Likert’s scale to evaluate their agreement with 28 questions about the human evolution, and answered to 6 multiple-choice questions. In general, students showed satisfactory knowledge of the human evolution. They had the most difficulties with questions or claims related to the Neanderthal. In addition, some of the pupils’ misconceptions have showed, for example that humans evolved from apes. Ninth graders did not show better knowledge than eighth graders. There was no significant difference between genders either. However, there were significant differences in knowledge of human evolution shown between pupils of different schools.
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