A Survey on Middle School Students' and Biology Teachers' Cognition of Biological Concepts in the Unit 'The Continuity of Life'

중학교 과학 3 'II. 생명의 연속성' 단원의 개념에 대한 교사와 학생의 인식 조사

Many middle school students have difficulty in understanding biological concepts because too many concepts are presented in the textbook compared to limited school hours. So, it is necessary to select concepts which are indispensable. The purpose of this study is to select key concepts in the unit 'The Continuity of Life' by surveying students' and teachers' cognition on the concepts. In this study, 78 concepts were extracted from 'Science 3', unit II 'The Continuity of Life'. To survey how students and teachers think the concepts, Likert type questionnaires were made. 300 third grade middle school students and 34 biology teachers were selected by random sampling and the questionnaires were applied. The following results were obtained:1. Students thought 59 concepts out of 78 were important and the mean score of important level of the concepts was 3.60. Students thought 26 concepts out of 78 were difficult and the mean score of diffculty level'of the concepts was 3.26. The more they think the concepts important, the more they think them difficult (r=0.7462, p<0.001). 2. Teachers thought 55 concepts out of 78 were important and the mean score of important level of the concepts was 3.82. Teachers thought 33 concepts out of 78 were difficult and the mean score of diffculty level of the concepts was 3.31. The more they think the concepts important, the more they think them difficult (r=0.6138, p<0.001). 3. The selected concepts were considered more important by teachers than by students(t=2.0150, p<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in evaluating the difficulty level of the concepts(t=0.7327, p>0.05). 4. It was found that students have difficulty in understanding concepts when they are presented in the textbook to require formal preparation than concrete preperation(t=2.6612, p<0.05).