What is educational in a free-choice science world? Determining what audiences believe about the educational value of nature programs

Background/Question/Methods: Evolution is an important ecological topic that is not well understood by the general public.  Wildlife and nature programs have the potential to engage and teach large audiences about the natural world in free-choice learning environments, but they also may be implicit in the public’s misunderstanding of evolution.  Considerable research has examined how these free-choice experiences affect the public’s understanding of scientific concepts.  This research usually approaches the learning experience from the educator’s perspective; the underlying assumption is that these sources of science learning are good, quality sources reflecting correct and current understanding.  From the audience’s perspective, theory suggests that epistemological beliefs and cognitive dispositions affect when and what individuals learn, especially for controversial topics such as evolution.  As a result, audiences may look to descriptors like “educational” as they consider free-choice learning experiences.  Defining a free-choice experience as “educational” from an audience’s perspective is problematic, however, because individuals must either already possess the knowledge to assess the quality of the experience or rely on an assessment applied by some other source.  Nature films are afforded a high level of educational credibility by the general public often without warrant; the genre is generally considered “educational” by definition.  However, research shows narratives often misrepresent evolutionary theory, implying Lamarckian and teleological explanations.  Our data indicates that not only is the quality of science presented generally lacking, the prevalence of misconceptions about ecological processes, such as evolution, is high (85% of 30 films inadvertently included misconceptions about science and evolution; 15% of those included misconceptions integral to the story).  Therefore, we explored the meaning of “educational” attached to nature programs by potential audiences.  We developed a survey that operationalized “educational” in two contexts: whether audiences believed these programs were (1) inherently educational and (2) designed to be educational.  We tested the survey in an upper-level ecology course at the University of Montana. 
Results/Conclusions: Results of this preliminary test indicated that 89% (n=35) of respondents believed nature films were “educational.”  Indeed, the more respondents believed the primary goal of nature programs was to teach (as opposed to entertain), the more they believed that both science (p<0.001) and nature (p<0.001) were portrayed accurately.  Despite the fact that most respondents had significant experience with biology, ecology, and the natural sciences, over half believed filmmakers had more expertise in these areas than they did.  Clearly, several issues need to be addressed more thoroughly within this theoretical context.