Misconceptions of Science Teachers in Evolution

Abstract

Concepts can be considered as ideas, thoughts or viewpoint that help us understand the phenomena of the world. These concepts should be factual and reliable or else it will lead into misconceptions. Misconceptions, on the other hand can be described as ideas that provide an incorrect understanding of such ideas, objects or events that are constructed based on a person’s experience, preconceived notions, non- scientific beliefs and theories, mixed conception and conceptual misunderstandings. Teachers are responsible in correcting the misconceptions of the students to remove confusions among ideas. Researchers have long speculated that a teacher’s knowledge of common student misconceptions could be crucial to student learning. Consisting a central and unifying base for all biological fields, theory of evolution is a comprehensive subject that plays an important role in understanding the origin of mankind and the changes that happens in the world. The study was intended to examine the Biology teachers’ understanding about evolution. The results of the study will contribute towards the learning community and contributory to the existing body of literature. It would be beneficial for the curriculum developers of teacher educators. It will also be advantageous to teacher trainers and to the Department of Education for its faculty development program. This research aims to identify the misconceptions of science teachers in Biology particularly in Evolution. The study was conducted with 54 science teachers in one of the cities in Metro Manila, Philippines. The mixed-method approach was chosen for the study wherein quantitative data was collected through online google form with 92% retrieval rate from the chosen respondents. A multiple-choice identification test consisting of questions from Earth Science, Chemistry, Physics and Biology adopted from the research of Biilent and Esra study. The 25 items each survey was pilot tested with the 35 science teachers in public schools in Pasig City, Philippines.  The Cronbach Alpha coefficient was found to be .971 to test the coefficient of reliability or consistency of the questions in the survey while the qualitative data was collected from the focus group discussion.