While UMC students differ in their misconceptions compared to California students, they do hold many of the common misconceptions found among students nationwide.
Second, although not significant, after adjusting for other associated factors, Asian women were 55.7% less likely to report the misconception in 2003 compared with those surveyed in 2000.
A significantly greater proportion of students used a misconception to explain ocean acidification, compared with 0% of faculty (n = 0/12; Figure 4C, χ = 3.897, p = 0.0484*).
Although we do not claim that the findings of this study, undertaken in a single southern state, are applicable nationwide, results obtained do contribute to the biological evolution misconception education literature and may be compared with similar studies that differ geographically and/or temporally.
As the students articulate their answers over multiple conversational turns, the contents of their contributions are compared with the expectations and misconceptions.
This result could simply have occurred because female teachers in this study (n = 17) appeared to be more knowledgeable of biological evolution, with a mean BEL Survey index score of 94.40 (SD = 13.69) compared to 89.2 (SD = 14.6) in men (n = 18), and mean misconception rate of 4.29 (SD = 3.87) compared with 5.83 (SD = 3.78) in men.
We observed a 26.3% decline in the prevalence of the misconception in all women surveyed in 2003 compared with those surveyed in 2000 (21.0% vs. 28.5%, p<0.001).
But the idea that it is somehow second-rate compared with campus-based universities is one of many misconceptions about the OU, she says.
Lynn and Lauren McCutcheon found that a brief fact-based report on the insanity defense, compared with a news program on crime featuring this defense, produced a significant decrease in undergraduates' misconceptions concerning this defense.
