Despite the importance of the theory of evolution to scientific knowledge, a number of misconceptions
continue to be found among teachers and undergraduate students. The aim of the present study was to
describe and characterise knowledge about evolution among 120 freshman undergraduate students of
two natural sciences programmes (environmental biology and veterinary medicine), 80 pre-service science
teachers (elementary and biology) and 45 in-service teachers (elementary and biology high school)
in Santiago, Chile. The research was carried out based on an eight-question questionnaire about
evolution acceptance and understanding. The instrument included seven Likert-scale questions and one
open-ended question. An analysis of the data revealed that more than 70% of teachers (pre-service and
in-service) and undergraduate students recognised the theory of evolution as established scientific knowledge.
When participants discussed the mechanism of evolution in the open-ended question, the most prevalent
responses from students and teachers (33%) explained evolution as need-driven changes for
survival purposes. Only 13% of the responses could be considered Darwinian, and 10% of responses
included more than one view of evolution. The Darwinian responses generally included three important
aspects: variation, inheritance and differential reproduction. The implications for biology teacher education
are also discussed in this study.

• Chilean Pre-service and In-service Teachers and Undergraduate Students’ Understandings of Evolutionary Theory

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