1. Background Method Acknowledgments Results Overview UWEC freshmen (199 females, 63 males) from a 100-level GE course completed a variety of measures involving scientific knowledge and reasoning, attitudes toward science, and religious beliefs. Upon completion of the questionnaire, participants provided contact information to enable us to find them again in three years for a follow-up data collection. Attitude Scales Four separate measures were designed to evaluate attitudes toward science and religious beliefs. These items assessed participants’ moral objections to evolution (2 items, α=.64; e.g., “People who accept evolution as fact are immoral”) distrust of science (6 items, α =.72; e.g., “Science and technology have created a world that is full of risks for people”), young earth creationist beliefs (4 items, α =.89; e.g., “Adam and Eve from Genesis are the universal ancestors of the entire human race”), and subscription to intelligent design fallacies (6 items, α =.76; e.g., “There is scientific evidence that humans were created by a supreme being or intelligent designer”). All attitude items were completed with a 10-point response scale that ranged from disagree strongly to agree strongly. Knowledge Scales In addition to the attitude scales, participants also completed a number of true/false items designed to assess science literacy. Questions were of relatively equivalent difficulty and spanned topics including genetics (13 items, α =.27), biology (7 items, α =.18), evolutionary theory (14 items, α =.21), the inorganic sciences (7 items, α =.27), and general scientific reasoning abilities (6 items, α =.39). Sample items from each set of knowledge items include: genetics, “The genetic information encoded in DNA molecules provides instruction for assembling fats and lipids”; biology, “The oxygen we breathe comes from plants”; evolutionary theory, “Increased genetic variability makes a population more resistant to extinction”; inorganic sciences, “The continents on which we live have been moving their locations for millions of years and will continue to move in the future”; scientific reasoning, “Good theories give rise to testable predictions”. This research is supported by a Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (SREU) grant from the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at UWEC. We thank Bailey VandenHeuvel and Megan Risdal for help with study design and data collection. Male mean Female mean tpd Science Literacy* 6.816.332.86.005.48 Genetics Knowledge* 10.409.832.49.01.57 Biology Knowledge 5.385.370.08.93.01 Inorganic Sciences Knowledge 6.286.091.38.17.20 Science Reasoning 5.084.831.61.11.23 Evolution Knowledge 9.349.011.23.22.33 Moral Objections to Evolution 2.252.58.32-.34 Distrust of Science* 3.534.25-3.40.001-.71 Young Earth Creationism 4.464.90-1.07.29-.44 Intelligent Design Fallacies* 4.414.97-1.97.05-.56 Belief in God* 7.108.04-2.33.02-.95 As displayed at left and right, UWEC freshmen vary widely in the degree to which they hold young earth creationist views (e.g., “God created humans in their present form.”). They are, however, quite consistent in their belief in God or other supreme being. Higher scores indicate stronger creationist views and stronger belief in a supreme being. Evolution by natural selection (Darwin, 1859) is the bedrock of the biological sciences and is well supported by data both from laboratory experiments as well as from the natural world as represented in morphology, embryology, paleontology, and biogeography (Quammen, 2004). In scientific circles, evolutionary theory ranks alongside gravity and electricity in its caliber as a theoretical notion verging on fact (Dawkins, 1989). However, in international comparisons, the USA ranks essentially at bottom in acceptance of evolutionary theory (Miller, Scott, & Okamoto, 2006). Within-country analyses demonstrate that several variables together account for much of the variance in views of evolution; these variables include education level, gender, religious beliefs, reservations about science, and genetic literacy. We designed this study to determine whether these patterns replicate among UWEC students and whether they demonstrate growth over their time here in science literacy and knowledge of evolutionary theory. In this poster, we describe the results of Phase I of a planned longitudinal study of UWEC students’ scientific literacy. During the 2009-2010 academic year, we collected responses from 264 freshmen enrolled in a 100-level general education course. Students completed measures of scientific reasoning and basic scientific knowledge (physics, chemistry, evolution, and genetics), as well as measures of religiosity and young earth creationist beliefs. We display students’ distributions of scores and correlations among the constructs. Note. Male n = 63, female n = 199. Effect size conventions for d are as follows:.2 = weak,.5 = moderate,.8 and above = strong. Positive d values indicate M > F, negative d values F > M. Table 1. Descriptive statistics and associations among scientific knowledge bases, attitudes toward science, and religious attitudes. Table 2. Gender comparisons on variables of interest. Discussion Researchers have singled out poor grasp of biological concepts, especially genetics, as an important contributor to our country’s low confidence in evolution by selection (Miller et al., 2006). In the current analysis, we replicated previously documented positive links between knowledge of genetics and understanding of evolution, and negative links between knowledge of genetics and moral objections to evolution. We also documented a strong negative link between young earth creationist beliefs and understanding of evolution and a moderate negative association between moral objections to evolution and understanding of evolution. In three years, we will survey these students again as they approach graduation. We hope that our longitudinal design will help disentangle this web of associations among scientific knowledge, attitudes toward science, and religiosity. Are strong religious beliefs predictive of continued distrust of science and lower levels of genetic and evolutionary knowledge? Will exposure to science coursework be accompanied by a decline in religiosity or moral objections to evolution? In our sample, students reported moderate levels of distrust of science and technology (mean of 4, with a theoretical midpoint of 5, on a 0 to 10 scale). This is somewhat disconcerting. The knowledge base in science and technology is expanding rapidly; presumably, some critical level of scientific reasoning skill and knowledge of these fields will be increasingly relevant for daily living as well as major life decisions. For example, humans will need to make informed medical decisions, ensure appropriate use of genetic information (Haga, 2006), and evaluate the benefits and costs of technical gadgets and scientifically engineered products. Arguably, society will look to college graduates to be leaders in important decisions surrounding societal applications of genetic and evolutionary knowledge (Vice Bowling, Heuther, & Wang et al., 2008) Three years from now, we will be able to report whether college students at UWEC, in various disciplines and career paths, demonstrate growth in scientific reasoning and in these scientific knowledge bases. Figure 1. Distribution of young Earth creationist views among UWEC freshmen. Figure 2. Distribution of UWEC freshmen’s belief in God or a supreme being. Figure 3. Distribution of science literacy scores among UWEC freshmen. Figure 4. Distribution of evolution knowledge scores among UWEC freshmen. As displayed at left and right, UWEC freshmen performed quite well overall (M = 81%) on general science literacy items. These items involved recognizing that the Earth goes around the Sun (and that it happens once a year), recognizing appropriate experimental design, and recognizing independent odds. Their knowledge of evolutionary theory (e.g., T/F: “Evolution means progression toward perfection”) was less impressive, coming in at 64%. References Darwin, C. R. (1859). The origin of species. London: John Murray. Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene (New ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haga, S. (2006). Teaching resources for genetics. Nature Reviews Genetics, 7, 223-229. Miller, J. D., Scott, E. C., & Okamoto, S. (2006). Public acceptance of evolution. Science, 313, 765-766. Quammen, D. (2004, November). Was Darwin wrong? National Geographic World, 2-35. Vice Bowling, B., Heuther, C. A., Wang, L., Meyers, M. F., Markle, G. C., Dean, G. E., et al. (2008). Genetic literacy of undergraduate non-science majors and the impact of introductory biology and genetics courses. BioScience, 58, 654-660.