Trial reportCBE life sciences education2025
Evidence for the Efficacy of Conflict-reducing Practices in Undergraduate Evolution Education in a Randomized Controlled Study.
Trial report in CBE life sciences education, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Teaching Accurate Sex-related Biology: Approaches for More Socially Just Instruction.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Centering Biodiversity: Integrating the Complexity of Sex Into a Developmental Biology Course.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Recognizing Compatibility, but Hesitant about In-Class Discussion: Nonreligious Biology Graduate Teaching Assistant Perceptions of the Relationship between Religion and Evolution.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Conflict-reducing practices during evolution instruction have been recommended to increase students' perceived compatibility between evolution and religion, increase evolution acceptance, and decrease stereotypes about religious students in science. However, the efficacy of these practices has not been demonstrated in a randomized controlled design making it uncertain whether they are causing the effects reported in less controlled studies. Further, we do not know the extent to which the religious identities of instructors may impact their effectiveness. In this study, we randomly assigned 2623 undergraduate students in 19 biology courses across different states to receive an evolution video with 1) no conflict-reducing practices, 2) conflict-reducing practices implemented by a non-religious instructor, or 3) conflict-reducing practices implemented by a Christian instructor. We found that the evolution videos with conflict-reducing practices led to decreased conflict, increased compatibility, and increased acceptance of human evolution compared with the video without conflict-reducing practices. Further, the Christian and non-religious instructor conditions were equally effective at improving all student outcomes, except the non-religious instructor was more effective for increasing perceived compatibility between religion and evolution among atheist students. These results illustrate that conflict-reducing practices, implemented by either Christian or non-religious instructors, can be effective in a controlled study.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.