Turkish Middle School Students' Difficulties in Learning Genetics Concepts

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reveal middle school students' difficulties in learning genetics concepts. Both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used in the present study. Survey method was used to explore the students' difficulties in conceptual and procedural level. An open-ended questionnaire was conducted to find out students' difficulties in learning genetics. Moreover, basic interpretive qualitative research approach was used in the present study. Parallel with this approach, a semi-structured interview was conducted to find out the students' difficulties comprehensively. The number of students that participated in this study was 128 from two elementary schools in Izmir-Turkey. The determined major difficulties in learning genetics were the function of cell and chromosome concepts. When we ask the functions of genetics concepts instead of their definition, most of the students had difficulty to explain the functions of these concepts. In general, students memorized the concepts of genetics. In addition to conceptual difficulties, some procedural difficulties in genetics were also explored. Regarding transfer of genetics information, when 62.6 % of the students answered the related question correctly, 41.6 % of the students did not develop true reasoning about this process. The difficulties related to teaching methods, textbooks, and mathematical expressions were other difficulties determined in this study.