Proposal for a framework to evaluate elementary school students understanding of natural selection

Evolution is one of the key concepts in biology that should be explored since kindergarten. However, the few studies analysing elementary school students’ learning about natural selection used distinct criteria to evaluate their knowledge. In the present work we develope a framework to evaluate students’ understanding of natural selection, based on a literature review and on an empirical study. This framework can be used to assess students understanding of evolution and natural selection, to inform the development of educational activities and to assess their impact on students’ understanding of these processes.