Pavol Prokop

Effects of Keeping Animals as Pets on Children's Concepts of Vertebrates and Invertebrates

Looking after pets provides several benefits in terms of childrens social interactions, and factual and conceptual knowledge about these animals. In this study we investigated effects of rearing experiences on childrens factual knowledge and alternative conceptions about animals. Data obtained from 1,541 children and 7,705 drawings showed very strong bias towards rearing vertebrates and a general ignorance of invertebrates. Experiences with rearing animals significantly contributed to childrens knowledge about animals internal organs. Children who reported keeping two or more animals acquired better scores in our study than children keeping only one or no animals. Moreover, the misclassification of invertebrates was not influenced by childrens experiences of keeping animals. Although girls showed better knowledge about the anatomy of animals and actually kept more animals than did boys, they also more frequently misclassified invertebrates by drawing bones inside the bodies of the animals, hence allocating them to the vertebrates. We propose that science activities with animals should be more focused on rearing invertebrates and improving childrens attitudes and knowledge about them.

Is biology boring? Student attitudes toward biology

The study examines the interests and attitudes of school students toward biology: through their interest in out-of-school activities and their attitude towards lessons as measured by interest, importance and difficulty. Biology lessons were relatively popular with the greatest preference found among students learning zoology. Girls showed significantly greater interest in biology than boys. This difference was highest among grade five (age 10–11) students when learning botany. Girls assessed biology as more important and less difficult than boys. Biology-related hobbies, films and books received greater attention (10-21%) than other activities and were significantly related. However, fifth grade students (both boys and girls) exhibited difficulties in learning botany and interest in biology decreased with age.

Effects of having pets at home on children's attitudes toward popular and unpopular animals.

ABSTRACT Having pets at home provides various social, health, and educational benefits to children. The question of how keeping pets at home affects the attitudes of children toward wild animals still has not been answered, due to various methodological issues, such as ignorance of some attitude dimensions and/or questionnaires that include items focused on very different animals. We conducted three independent research surveys (using three independent samples) of Slovakian primary school children aged 10 to 15 years (n = 1297). These surveys focused on the effects of keeping pets on the attitudes of children towards, and knowledge of, three unpopular animals in Slovakia. These animals were pests (potato beetle) (Study 1), predators (wolf) (Study 2), and those that pose a threat of disease to humans (mouse) (Study 3). Each survey also included a popular animal (ladybird beetle, rabbit, and squirrel, respectively), which served as a “control”; these were compared by pair-wise statistics. Results consistently showed that children had better knowledge of, but less favorable attitudes towards, unpopular animals compared with popular ones. Having pets at home was associated with more positive attitudes to, and better knowledge of, both popular and unpopular animals. Girls were less favorably inclined than boys to animals that may pose a threat, danger, or disease to them. Implications for humane education are discussed, especially in terms of keeping pets, the link between knowledge and attitudes, and childrens understanding of ecological adaptations.

Cross-Cultural Comparison of Student Attitudes toward Snakes

Th ere is an increasing amount of research focusing on the origin of the human fear of animals. However, other dimensions of human views of frightening animals have been largely neglected. Th is study investigated attitudes toward snakes. Th e Snake Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ), which consisted of 58 Likert-type items (Cronbach’s α = 0.91), was administered in a sample of students from two countries (Turkey and Slovakia). Students showed negative attitudes toward snakes, especially within the Negativistic and Naturalistic dimensions. Turkish students showed more positive Scientistic and Naturalistic attitudes than Slovakian students, and females showed more negative attitudes toward snakes than males. Although biology majors had more positive attitudes, compared with nonbiology majors, knowledge of snakes and beliefs about untrue myths were similar between these two subgroups. Our research indicates that fear of snakes negatively infl uences other attitudinal dimensions (especially naturalistic and scientifi c attitudes) although no students had been injured by a snake. Keeping various pets at home was associated with less fear of snakes. Nature protection actions should combine direct contact with these controversial animals with interventions against belief in untrue myths about snakes.

Slovakian Students' Knowledge of and Attitudes toward Biotechnology

This study examined university students’ knowledge of and attitudes (n = 378) toward biotechnology in Slovakia, a conservative country where the distribution of genetically engineered products are banned by law. We found a significant positive correlation between attitudes and the level of knowledge; however, although students enrolled in biology courses have better knowledge of biotechnology, their attitudes toward genetic engineering were similar than those of students who do not study biology. Females showed poorer knowledge and lower acceptance of genetically engineered products than did males. Overall, Slovakian students have poor knowledge and numerous misunderstandings about what genetic engineering means, which suggests that science curriculum with respect to this topic should be greatly re‐evaluated and teaching strategies should be improved accordingly.

Practical Work at School Reduces Disgust and Fear of Unpopular Animals

Disgust and fear are basic emotions that protect humans against pathogens and/or predators. Natural selection favored individuals who successfully escaped or avoided harmful animals; thus animals who pose a disease threat activate aversive responses in humans. However, all these animals who are generally disliked have rights to their own existence and play important roles in ecosystems. Here, we used three unpopular live animals (wood louse, snail, and mouse) in practical biology work with 11-13-year-old children (experimental group). The control group had no opportunity to work with animals. Reported disgust and fear of these animals significantly decreased during the study in the experimental group but not in the control group. This study experimentally supports the idea that attitudes toward animals are positively influenced by physical contact with them.

High school students' attitudes towards spiders: a cross-cultural comparison

Spiders are traditionally considered to be among the least popular of animals. Current evidence suggests that a negative attitude towards spiders could be influenced by both cultural and evolutionary pressures. Some researchers suggest that science education activities could positively influence students’ perceptions of spiders. Their evidence is, however, ambivalent. Using a five‐point score Likert‐type questionnaire in which the items were developed in a similar way to four of Kellert’s categories of attitude (scientistic, negativistic, naturalistic, and ecologistic) towards invertebrates, we compared the level of knowledge of and attitudes towards spiders of high school students from two countries, Slovakia (n = 354) and South Africa (n = 382). The students represented different cultures and followed dissimilar science education curricula. Only among the Slovakian students there was a statistically significant but low correlation between knowledge and attitude (r = 0.30). The South African students scored higher in the categories of scientistic, naturalistic, and ecologistic attitudes. Comparison of attitude towards spiders of indigenous Africans from coeducational Catholic schools revealed that South African students have greater fear of spiders than Slovakian students, supporting the biological preparedness hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts a greater fear of spiders in South Africa than in Europe since several South African spiders possess venoms that are dangerous to humans. The results of this study are discussed from science education, cultural, and evolutionary perspectives.

Risk of parasite transmission influences perceived vulnerability to disease and perceived danger of disease-relevant animals

Adaptationist view proposes that emotions were shaped by natural selection and their primary function is to protect humans against predators and/or disease threat. This study examined cross-cultural and inter-personal differences in behavioural immune system measured by disgust, fear and perceived danger in participants from high (Turkey) and low (Slovakia) pathogen prevalence areas. We found that behavioural immune system in Turkish participants was activated more than those of Slovakian participants when exposed to photographs depicting disease-relevant cues, but not when exposed to disease-irrelevant cues. However, participants from Slovakia, where human to human disease transmission is expected to be more prevalent than in Turkey, showed lower aversion in Germ Aversion subscale supporting hypersensitiveness of the behavioural immune system. Having animals at home was less frequent both in Turkey and in participants who perceived higher danger about disease relevant animals. Participants more vulnerable to diseases reported higher incidence of illness last year and considered perceived disease-relevant animals more dangerous than others. Females showed greater fear, disgust and danger about disease-relevant animals than males. Our results further support the finding that cultural and inter-personal differences in human personality are influenced by parasite threat.

The effectiveness of hawk mimicry in protecting cuckoos from aggressive hosts

The close resemblance between the common cuckoo, Cuculus canorus, and the Eurasian sparrowhawk, Accipiter nisus, is often viewed as Batesian mimicry evolved by the cuckoo in response to the aggression of its host. However, the effectiveness of such mimicry is poorly known. We examined cuckoo–hawk discrimination ability in the great reed warbler, Acrocephalus arundinaceus, a well-known and aggressive cuckoo host. We measured the responses of birds to three combinations of simultaneously presented taxidermic mounts of the cuckoo, sparrowhawk and turtle dove, as a harmless control, placed near their nests. Great reed warblers clearly discriminated the two enemies from the innocuous species. They always attacked cuckoos and sparrowhawks more often than turtle doves suggesting they considered both a danger to their broods. However, when we confronted the tested birds with the simultaneously presented mounts of these species, the parents attacked the cuckoo more frequently than the sparrowhawk. The results revealed that although great reed warblers attacked both cuckoo and sparrowhawk mounts near their nest, they were able to discriminate between them. This may suggest that if cuckoos had evolved the visual mimicry of a sparrowhawk to avoid host attacks, this mimicry may be unsuccessful not only because it is imperfect and hosts can learn to discriminate but also because of the generalized nest defence of more aggressive hosts.

The association between disgust, danger and fear of macroparasites and human behaviour

Evolutionary explanations of disgust propensity propose that disgust is an adaptation which helps us to decrease the likelihood of being infected by pathogens. To test this hypothesis, we examined human fear, disgust and self-perceived danger as a response on colourful pictures of disease-relevant and disease-irrelevant invertebrates. Furthermore, we also examined a possible link between these variables and human anti-parasite behaviour. We found that participants clearly distinguished between disease-relevant and disease-irrelevant group of animals, and that females always scored higher than males. Moreover, there were associations between ratings of fear, disgust and danger and human anti-parasite behaviour. Our results support the hypothesis that human emotions and behaviours are shaped by natural selection.