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Do Cultural Gatekeepers Influence Acceptance Or Rejection of Evolutionary Theory by Christian College Students at Anderson University

出版	Anderson University, School of Theology, 2017
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=pX9rswEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋Based on my own personal experience of great conflict between faith and evolution, I wanted to discover if college students at Anderson University, a Christian university in Anderson, Indiana, were also struggling. I realized that I needed permission from those I trusted and respected in order to accept the theory of evolution (as a theistic evolutionist) while still remaining a faithful Christian. How do Christians who hold a position of either 7-Day Creationism or Theistic Evolutionism change their minds and accept the other position? Is there a cultural gatekeeper, someone they respect and trust, who gives them permission to change their minds? I did a case study analysis of biology students, both majors and non-majors, during the fall semester of 2015. I decided to use a short survey format to measure student acceptance or rejection of theistic evolution and the factors that influenced their change of mind. The final 20 question survey included 17 quantitative questions and 3 qualitative questions. The 17 quantitative questions included 8 demographic questions, which allowed me to properly place students in various categories by class rank and class. I did include one question to help me exclude students who did not accept God as Creator and one question to help me exclude students who could not differentiate microevolution from macroevolution. The remaining 7 questions were scored on both a theistic evolution (TE) and a 7-Day Creationism (7DC) scale. A 1-tailed T test and a 1 way ANOVA were used to compare the means of particular groups. Statistical tests were performed using IBM's SPSS Version 23. The 3 qualitative questions asked students if they had changed their minds, if a person was involved in that change, and how much trust they placed in that person. Answers to the 3 qualitative questions were analyzed by examining key words or concepts present in multiple answers. My quantitative study did not support my hypotheses that senior biology majors would be more accepting of evolution than freshmen biology majors and that students with a seminar-style evolution unit would be more accepting of evolution than students with a lecture-style evolution unit. The study results were inconclusive as to whether students with more classroom exposure to evolution were more accepting of evolution than students who had less exposure, regardless of class rank. One of the significant findings was that one third to one half of the students marked "don't know" for each question. My qualitative study did support my hypothesis that students need permission from a cultural gatekeeper, in this case a teacher or professor, in order to change their mind about evolution.