Abstract
Pseudoscience beliefs (e.g., astrology, ghosts or UFOs) are rife in American society. Most research examines creation/evolution among liberal arts majors, general public adults, or, infrequently, middle or high school science teachers. Thus, research truncates the range of ersatz science thinking and the samples it studies. We examined diverse beliefs, e.g., extraterrestrials, magic, Biblical creation, and evolution, among 540 female and 123 male future teachers, including 325 elementary education majors. We study how these cognitions related to education major and, because popular media often present pseudoscience “information”, student media use. Future elementary educators most often rejected evolution and endorsed “creationism” or Intelligent Design. Education majors held similar beliefs about astrology, UFO landings, or magic. Compared with other education students, elementary education majors watched less news or science television and read fewer popular science magazines. However, religious and media variables explained more variation in creation/evolution beliefs than education major. We discuss implications of our findings for elementary school science education and how teacher educators may be able to affect pseudoscience beliefs among their elementary education students.
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Notes
We refer here to social or political, not scientific, controversy, important especially when we consider the proliferation of supposedly “controversial topics” in current American politics about school science.
Jenny McCarthy, an entertainer, has extensively written and spoken about the “dangers”, particularly autism, supposedly linked to vaccines (an assertion lacking systematic evidence). One pundit created the “Jenny McCarthy Body Count” website using data from the Centers for Disease Control, showing time series data on the incidence of different diseases in the USA. Between June 2007 and February 2011, he estimated at least 74,000 illnesses and over 600 deaths that could have been prevented by vaccination, see: http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com accessed February 6, 2011.
The National Science Teachers Association provided the population list for the national sample.
Among our participants for this study, 19 percent agreed, humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time.
The questionnaire is available upon request from the first author (slosh@fsu.edu), or from Raymond Eve (eve@uta.edu) or Kenneth Feder (feder@ccsu.edu).
This report is available by email from the first author (slosh@fsu.edu).
The omitted seven items either had ignorance rates of at least 20 percent among these students (King Tut’s curse; the lost continent of Atlantis; or the Shroud of Turin); resembled none of the other pseudoscience general topics (reincarnation; communication with the dead; or the Bermuda Triangle) or were so highly skewed that the item was basically a constant (time travel).
For correlations among these indices, see Losh and Nzekwe (2011), Table 6.
None of the participants identified as orthodox Jews or Muslims of any kind.
We also reference bivariate correlation coefficients published earlier (Losh and Nzekwe 2011).
In prior analyses, we combined agreement with uncertainty responses for indices. However it has been suggested that “uncertainty” could indicate “scientific skepticism”. We doubt this explanation because of the centuries’ duration of legends such as the Loch Ness Monster or “systems” such as astrology. However, creating “purified” agreement indices as we do here does not change the overall results or conclusions.
Because education major did not influence beliefs about creatures, magic or extraterrestrials we do not present MCA graphs for these three indices.
This is besides recommending at least one traditional science course, e.g., biology, chemistry or physics in order for education graduates to receive elementary education certification in their state.
Ghosthunters is one example of what is often touted as "science" on American TV science channels.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded in part through an American Educational Research Association grant REC-0310268, National Science Foundation grant 0532943 and the National Science Foundation Division of Materials Research through DMR-0654118. Thanks also to Haim Eshach, Raymond Eve, Ken Feder, Ryan Wilke, Alice Robbin, Martin Bauer, Bob Bell, Jaqui Falkenheim, and Nick Allum for insightful suggestions. The responsibility for errors, of course, rests with us.
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Losh, S.C., Nzekwe, B. The Influence of Education Major: How Diverse Preservice Teachers View Pseudoscience Topics. J Sci Educ Technol 20, 579–591 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-011-9297-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-011-9297-0