Perceptions of the relationship between evolutionary theory and biblical explanations of the origins of life and their effects on the learning of evolution among high school students

Abstract

This study explores the perceived relationship between evolution and the biblical account of creation amongst Thai high school students in Christian schools and the impact of these perceptions on learning. Evidence was found for the following perspectives: creation only and compartmental (incompatible models); NOMA, fusion, and complementary (compatible models). Each perspective is related to an approach to learning: rejection of one explanation, switching between explanations instrumentally according to the context, differentiating between areas of reality explained by each, integration of the explanations and refinement of one explanation through the other. Furthermore, students who held compatible perspectives had the potential to engage positively with learning about evolution, those adopting a rejection approach tended to engage with evolution in order to falsify it and the student who took a switching approach demonstrated detached learning. The study therefore provides an example situation in which learning within one discipline affects learning in another