Intuitive Instruction: Evidence of Anthropocentric, Teleological, and Essentialist Language in Instructor Lectures during Undergraduate Biology Courses.

Intuitive cognitive construals (anthropocentric, teleological, and essentialist thinking) commonly characterize understanding of biology among undergraduate biology majors as well as non-majors. To examine whether instructor language might contribute, we coded 45 undergraduate biology lectures and found that construal-consistent language (especially anthropocentrism) was pervasive across subject areas and student levels.