Conceptions about the origin of species in Italian 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 8th graders.

Italian children receive some information about evolution (in the context of the topic “the Earth before human-life”) in third grade. Towards the end of the school year they show evolutionary or “mixed” conceptions (i.e., partly creationist and partly evolutionary) (Berti, Toneatti, & Rosati, 2010), unlike American children of the same age, who entertain creationist conceptions regarding the origin of species (Evans 2001). The present study investigated what Italian children think about this topic in later grades, one or more years after they heard about evolution at school. A total of 159 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th and 8th graders participated in the study. They were asked how the first animals came into being, whether any difference exists between early animals and animals living nowadays, and how this difference came about. Results show that, with age, the proportion of children saying that animals (the first ones, and/or those existing now) have simply “appeared” decreases, whereas the proportion of children giving evolutionary answers increases. Hardly any children mentioned creation. Children offered various explanations of evolutionary changes (e. g.,the bigger size of present horse with respect to their ancestors). Those based on growth (and during the life of an individual animals) decreased with age, whereas teleological answers increased. These data are at odds with the studies conducted in US, in which creationist answers from 7-8 and 10-12 year olds prevailed, and were widespread even among adolescents and adults. The data also conflict with the view that deeply entrenched cognitive obstacles prevent understanding and acceptance of the notion of evolution (Evans 2008).