A Cross-National Study of Students’ Understanding of Genetics Concepts: Implications from Similarities and Differences in England and Turkey (original) (raw)
Related papers
What do Students Really Understand? Secondary Education Students' Conceptions of Genetics
Science Insights Education Frontiers, 2021
Individuals with a secondary education should have a knowledge level sufficient to make sense of what they read or hear about genetics, and they should be able to think scientifically in evaluation and decision-making processes. The purpose of this study is to identify the basic understanding of secondary education students about genetic concepts and the reasons for the difficulty of learning and teaching genetics. Semi-structured interviews that include student drawings have been conducted with 24 students to gain a comprehensive perspective on secondary education students' understanding of the basic concepts of genetics. The answers given by the students to the interview questions and their drawings have been analyzed with content analysis. Qualitative data analyzed with a holistic point of view were collected and evaluated under the categories of 'DNA, gene and chromosome' and 'Cell divisions and heredity relationship.' As a general result, it has been found that students have inaccurate and inconsistent information about the basic concepts of genetics, have difficulties in establishing relationships between these concepts, and cannot fully understand and explain the processes underlying genetic events. It has been observed that various factors have an effect on this result. It will be possible to support students to develop a more accurate understanding of genetic concepts and issues by working on the weaknesses in genetics teaching, providing an enriched teaching environment with current teaching methods and materials, and moving away from rote learning.
International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2016
Lebanese educators claim that middle and secondary school students exhibit poor understanding of genetics due to misconceptions and difficulties that hinder progression in conceptual understanding of major genetics concepts and phenomena across different grade levels. They attributed these problems to Lebanon's ill-structured genetics curriculum which needs a thorough revision in light of curricular reform models that take into account student misconceptions, cognitive abilities, and past experiences. Despite these claims, no empirical tests were done. Consequently, this study aimed to investigate G7-12 Lebanese students' misconceptions and difficulties in genetics in an attempt to design a curriculum that would enhance student understanding of genetics. Using quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, we obtained an in-depth understanding of the nature of the misconceptions and difficulties encountered by students in grades 7-12, determined the level of students' genetics literacy, and explored the progression of their level of conceptual understanding of major genetics concepts across grade levels. A questionnaire was administered to 729 students (G7-12) in 6 schools and was followed by semi-structured interviews with 62 students to validate the questionnaire results, gain further understanding of students' misconceptions, and assess their level of genetics literacy. Findings showed that patterns of inheritance, the deterministic nature of genes, and the nature of genetic information were found to be among the most difficult concepts learned. Students also showed inadequate understanding of many basic genetics concepts which persist across grade levels. Furthermore, results indicated that students across all grade levels exhibited a low level of genetics literacy. Implications for practice and research are discussed.
Understanding genetics: Analysis of secondary students' conceptual status
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2007
This article explores the conceptual change of students in Grades 10 and 12 in three Australian senior high schools when the teachers included computer multimedia to a greater or lesser extent in their teaching of a genetics course. The study, underpinned by a multidimensional conceptual-change framework, used an interpretive approach and a case-based design with multiple data collection methods. Over 4-8 weeks, the students learned genetics in classroom lessons that included BioLogica activities, which feature multiple representations. Results of the online tests and interview tasks revealed that most students improved their understanding of genetics as evidenced in the development of genetics reasoning. However, using Thorley's (1990) status analysis categories, a cross-case analysis of the gene conceptions of 9 of the 26 students interviewed indicated that only 4 students' postinstructional conceptions were intelligible-plausible-fruitful. Students' conceptual change was consistent with classroom teaching and learning. Findings suggested that multiple representations supported conceptual understanding of genetics but not in all students. It was also shown that status can be a viable hallmark enabling researchers to identify students' conceptual change that would otherwise be less accessible. Thorley's method for analyzing conceptual status is discussed. ß
Secondary School Students' Alternative Conceptions about Genetics
Alternative conceptions are considered to be the dominant factor in hindering students' learning in Science. The aim of this study was to explore 11 th grade students' alternative conceptions of concepts related to genetics and heredity. A sample of 186 students from Riyadh city, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was randomly selected and given a valid and reliable written questionnaire. The results indicated that students hold many alternative conceptions about concepts related to genetics and heredity, involving direct and indirect cell division, reduction division, sexual and asexual reproduction, and the process of genetic information transfer. Specifically, the findings revealed that students have difficulty in differentiating between asexual and sexual reproduction, and also that there is a lack in students' understanding of the mechanisms of transferring genetics and heredity characteristics in reproduction and cell division. As a result, these types of alternative conceptions may have weakened students' ability to explain their answers to the written questions. Such alternative conceptions may, in fact, hinder students' understanding of most of the biological concepts.
Comprehension of basic genetic concepts by brazilian undergraduate students
Questionnaires were applied in six different Brazilian undergraduate courses (Biology, Medicine, Dentistry, Psychology, Nutrition and Phonology) to analyze students' comprehension of basic genetic concepts. All sampled students together were not able to answer 30% of the questions, while a significant percentage did not adequately answer more than 60% of the questions. The differences in performance between first-year and last-year students of an undergraduate Biology course were evaluated. Interestingly, first year university students, without any formation in genetics at the university level, performed frequently better when compared with their last-year colleagues. Results of the present study revealed that future teachers and other health professionals share distorted understanding of elementary genetics. This finding is of particular interest, reflecting a relationship between acquisition of the genetic knowledge and professional development.
The Genetics Conceptual Understanding of Indonesian and United States Undergraduate Biology Students
Asia-Pacific Science Education, 2021
Genetics as a core concept of life science is essential for understanding biology. Examining genetics understanding among biology majors is becoming important since they must necessarily achieve some level of genetics understanding to advance their career. This study compares Indonesian biology majors’ genetics understanding with previously published data from students in the United States (US). This study also identifies the effect of academic year and program on genetics understanding by administering the Genetics Concept Assessment (GCA) to 377 biology majors in Indonesia. IRT-Rasch modeling was performed for instrument validation, followed by one-way ANOVA and independent sample t-test for the analysis. The results showed that Indonesian biology majors’ genetics understanding was significantly affected by academic year but was not affected by the academic program. Indonesian biology majors had a slightly similar level of genetics understanding with US non-majors’ pre-test scores...
Conceptions on genetics in a group of college students
Journal of Community Genetics, 2012
The purpose of this study was to investigate awareness, beliefs, and opinions on genetics in a group of Brazilian college students from several courses. The study used the focus group technique with the participation of 19 students, divided into four groups. Also, it used the isotopic reading technique to analyze the material. The results were divided in four themes: the basic knowledge of genetics, the "new genetics," including molecular biology and testing, genetic manipulation, and genetics and the media. The participants showed reasonable knowledge on the subject, obtained from various sources, including the printed press, the internet, documentaries, and fictional TV shows. Ethical issues were discussed comprehensively and the groups showed awareness on the hazards brought by genetic reductionism and the need to have some type of regulation regarding genetic manipulation and testing. It is necessary to broaden the debate about the progress in genetics because some of them will affect a significant number of people. This debate should include the lay public, which has been actively participating in decisions involving research and the use of new technologies.
Assessment of Genetics Understanding
Science & Education, 2017
Understanding how situational features of assessment tasks impact reasoning is important for many educational pursuits, notably the selection of curricular examples to illustrate phenomena, the design of formative and summative assessment items, and determination of whether instruction has fostered the development of abstract schemas divorced from particular instances. The goal of our study was to employ an experimental research design to quantify the degree to which situational features impact inferences about participants' understanding of Mendelian genetics. Two participant samples from different educational levels and cultural backgrounds (high school, n = 480; university, n = 444; Germany and USA) were used to test for context effects. A multi-matrix test design was employed, and item packets differing in situational features (e.g., plant, animal, human, fictitious) were randomly distributed to participants in the two samples. Rasch analyses of participant scores from both samples produced good item fit, person reliability, and item reliability and indicated that the university sample displayed stronger performance on the items compared to the high school sample. We found, surprisingly, that in both samples, no significant differences in performance occurred among the animal, plant, and human item contexts, or between the fictitious and Breal^item contexts. In the university sample, we were also able to test for differences in performance between genders, among ethnic groups, and by prior biology coursework. None of these factors had a meaningful impact upon performance or context effects. Thus some, but not all, types of genetics problem solving or item formats are impacted by situational features.
Traits, genes, particles and information: re-visiting students' understandings of genetics
International Journal of Science Education - INT J SCI EDUC, 2004
Findings from a study of 10 German students aged 15–19, using problem‐centred interviews, suggest that many students hold an ‘everyday’ conception of genes as small, trait‐bearing, particles. Analysis of this notion identified a number of ways in which such a view might restrict the ability of students to develop an understanding of the scientific explanation. For example, if genes are equated with trait there is no clear distinction between genotype and phenotype, and hence little need to consider a mechanism by which a gene could be expressed in the phenotype. This everyday perspective provided a plausible explanation of the difficulties and misconceptions found, after formal teaching of genetics, in a survey of 482 English students aged 14–16 based on written questions and interviews. Drawing on this analysis, an approach to teaching genetics and inheritance that takes account of students' everyday views is suggested.
Profile of Genetic Concepts Understanding for 9th Junior High School
Jurnal Penelitian Pendidikan IPA (JPPIPA), 2022
This research aims to analyze the understanding of students' concepts in 9 th grade junior high school on genetic material. Mastery of concepts is one of the important aims in the process of learning biology. In this research, it is used case study method with the research design pretest only one group design. The number of samples is 50 9 th grade students consisting of 35 female students and 15 male students. The average of sample is 14-15 years old. The research instruments consist of 15 multiple choice questions on genetic material. The results show that the understanding of the concept of most of the students is about-0.19 logit. There are differences in mastering the concept of understanding between male and female students at certain concepts. It is used the Rasch model that can explain well the profile of students' conceptual understanding using output table 3.1 summary statistics: reliability person and separation person. Response patterns are known from person fit and scalogram table, as well as output table 30. Item: dif, between/within is applied to detect question bias both genders. The results of profile in understanding the concept of biology learning on genetic concepts require further researches to be able to improve the learning process so as to elevate the understanding of genetic concepts for 9 th grade junior high school students.