Learning Resources LSP0339-UK 5-in-1 Outdoor Measure-Mate

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What is the dimensionality of the corpus of items provided by the MATE, I-SEA, and GAENE, and how can the dimension(s) be interpreted?

Nehm RH, Schonfeld IS. Does increasing biology teacher knowledge of evolution and the nature of science lead to greater preference for the teaching of evolution in schools? J Sci Teacher Educ. 2007;18:699–723. Short SD, Hawley PH. Evolutionary attitudes and literacy survey (EALS): development and validation of a short form. Evolution. 2012;5(3):419–28. Rusbult, C. E. (1983). A longitudinal test of the investment model: The development (and deterioration) of satisfaction and commitment in heterosexual involvements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(1), 101–117. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.1.101. Increasing evolution acceptance remains an important implicit target for biology instruction across the globe, now more than ever given recent empirical (Romine et al. 2016; Nadelson and Southerland 2010) and theoretical (Deniz et al. 2008; Ha et al. 2012) work documenting the marriage of evolution acceptance and content understanding. Indeed, evolution acceptance may be an important component of meeting the plausibility and fruitfulness conditions suggested by conceptual change theory (Strike and Posner 1992) required before students are willing to accept scientific ideas explaining how species change over time (Deniz et al. 2008). Interpretation of the moderate relationship between evolution knowledge and acceptance (Romine et al. 2016; Nadelson and Southerland 2010) through the lens of conceptual change theory suggests that evolution acceptance may serve as an important intermediary between biology instruction and a student’s willingness to actually change his/her ideas about evolution (Deniz et al. 2008). Putting a quantitative measure on evolution acceptance therefore becomes important toward facilitating understanding of how our instruction is impacting the way our students think about evolution. In addition to understanding how our current measures of evolution acceptance fit with conceptual work, this study also yields insight into the empirical implications for parametrizing evolution acceptance. Various parametrizations have been explored. Nadelson and Southerland ( 2012) utilized a three-dimensional model for evolution acceptance in their construction of the I-SEA, suggesting that the dimensions of evolution acceptance should be delineated by the type of evolution: microevolution, microevolution, and human evolution. What this study suggests is that, from a quantitative perspective, topic is a determinant of the difficulty of an item along the same sub-construct(Figs. 3 and 4), but it does not seem to serve as the key delimiter in terms of the unique sub-constructs. In other words, while acceptance of macroevolution, human evolution, and microevolution may be distinct in their difficulty, it may not be necessary to treat them asdistinct sub-constructs. Rather, the data show that differences between students’ responses on items across contexts are accounted for by the expected difficulty hierarchy imposed by the Rasch model (Boone 2016), making it unnecessary to define new sub-constructs to account for the different response patterns across contexts.Harris S, Kemmerling RL, North MM. Brief virtual reality therapy for public speaking anxiety. Cyberpsychol Behav. 2002;5(6):543–50. Schmitt N, Stuits DM. Factors defined by negatively keyed items: the result of careless respondents? Appl Psychol Meas. 1985;9(4):367–73.

Nadelson and Southerland ( 2012) developed the I-SEA to make measures of evolution acceptance more fine-grained, embracing the possibility that evolution acceptance may comprise multiple related constructs which account for the specific type of evolution being considered. The authors cite that micro- and macroevolution are viewed differently by students (Nehm and Ha 2011). Specifically, many who reject macroevolution may readily accept ideas about microevolution (Scott 2005), and further, even those who accept evolution over long time scales often believe that humans are exempt from the process of evolution (Gallup 2010). Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100(2), 204–232. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.100.2.204. Popper K. Philosophy of science. In: Mace CA, editor. British Philosophy in the Mid-Century. London: George Allen and Unwin; 1957. After making a reflective and informed decision on the number of factors to retain, and observing the specific items loading onto particular factors, our attention turned to construct validity of the individual items towards measurement of each dimension, which we call an acceptance sub- construct from here on. Given that a student’s appraisal of each item was rated on a Likert scale, we utilized the Rasch rating scale model (Andrich 1982) as a criterion for validity. Rasch models differ in philosophy from other models like IRT and classical test theory (CTT) in that Rasch provides a philosophical criterion for validity of the data as opposed to letting the model define the data. This practice of evaluating the quality of the data through a standard model is different from the statistical practice of fitting the model to the data, which the goal of IRT and CTT. Whether to use Rasch or IRT modeling for validation of tests and surveys has been debated contentiously for many years (Andrich 2004). This said, it is straightforward to argue that the Rasch approach better aligns with the laboratory practice of calibrating machines based on a fixed standard before their use. Further, use of a fixed standard better aligns with the scientific practice of falsification (Popper 1957; Lakatos 1976) than use of statistical data-fitting approaches. Beyond these epistemological advantages, the Rasch approach facilitates generation of item-independent estimates of acceptance and person-independent estimates of item difficulty (also true with IRT), generation of linear estimates, and the ability to map student and item measures along a common scale (Boone and Scantlebury 2006).

Sweeney, M. M. (2002). Two decades of family change: the shifting economic foundations of marriage. American Sociological Review, 67(1), 132–147. doi: 10.2307/3088937. GAENE1, everyone should understand evolution, sits at the middle of the scale (Fig. 3). Along the logic of GAENE8, the misfit of GAENE1 is likely caused by responses from students who accept evolution, but nonetheless do not view it as a necessity for engaging in other courses of study or for advancing one’s quality of life. GAENE6 sits at the top of the Rasch difficulty scale along with GAENE8 (Fig. 3). This item states: I would be willing to argue in favor of evolution in a public forum such as a school club, church group, or meeting of public school parents. Fear of public speaking is quite common (Harris et al. 2002), and it is straightforward to argue that one can display acceptance of evolution without extraversion. In addition to evolution acceptance this item measures willingness to engage in public discourse; the latter having little to do with evolution acceptance.