Patricia H. Hawley|Stephen D. Short|Luke McCune|Mark R. Osman|Todd D. Little
What’s the Matter with Kansas?: The Development and Confirmation of the Evolutionary Attitudes and Literacy Survey (EALS)
University of Kansas|University of Kansas|University of Kansas|University of Kansas|University of Kansas
present survey designed assess predominant regional belief systems roles beliefs play science understanding attitudes curricular effectiveness colleges universities end created wide variety theorydriven subscales lower order factors reflecting example exposure evolutionary material young earth creationist beliefs moral social objections political ideology endorsement intelligent design fallacies knowledge distrust scientific enterprise attitudes evolutionary theorys relevance several domains eg sciences humanities also included potentially important demographic variables eg rural upbringing family size finally assessed openness experience key facet personality hierarchical structural equation modeling sem analysis showed 16 constructs theoretically meaningful quantitatively coherent higher order factor structure large kansas sample university students creationist reasoning conservative orientation political religious negatively associated exposure evolutionary theory knowledge positive attitudes toward relevance time exposure theory positively associated knowledge positive attitudes importantly though kansasspecific demographic variables eg rural origins largely unrelated outcomes interest universitybased sample personality factor openness experience appears highly relevant several higher order factors eg exposure knowledge relevance creationist reasoning close implications educators next steps survey development