Anthropocentric Thinking about Antibiotic Resistance and Ecosystems: Relations between Explanations and...

Intuitive conceptual frameworks can shape students' reasoning for biology concepts, sometimes forming misconceptions. Anthropocentric thinking-reasoning that centers humans-often relates to misconceptions about antibiotic resistance and ecosystem change. Cultural influences, such as lifestyles with greater exposure to nature, have been associated with reduced anthropocentric reasoning. The backgrounds of rural and urban children vary in opportunities for experiences with nature-rural children have greater exposure and urban children less exposure to outdoor settings. The relationship between students with rural and urban backgrounds and anthropogenic thinking highlights potential differences in students' biology misconceptions. Here, we compare students' rural and urban backgrounds and institutions to their use of anthropocentric reasoning and its relatedness with misconceptions in biology. Students from rural and urban backgrounds were recruited to complete a survey with written and categorical agreement ratings for misconceptions in biology. All students-regardless of hometown population and institution densities-showed similar rates of anthropocentric reasoning. However, the use of anthropocentric language was highly correlated with biological misconceptions. Our research suggests that anthropocentric thinking is pervasive in undergraduate students and influences biological misconceptions.