Evolution 2014: A clever way to see if creationist students understand evolutionary concepts

Rebecca Price and Tessa Andrews have a clever way of assessing the understanding of students who harbor creationist beliefs in evolutionary biology courses. Rather than force them to state answers to questions that assert a factual claim about the way the actual world work, ask them to take the perspective of an evolutionary biologist. Questions can start with phrases like “how would an evolutionary biologist explain…” and “would an evolutionary biologist agree with…”, effectively eliminating the issue of whether evolution is “true”. As Price put it “This was a nod to creationist students… I give them an inch without letting them take a mile”. Nice!