The Students Ideas about Species Concept: A Semantic Network Analysis
Ai Nurlaelasari Rusmana (a), Rahmi Qurota Aini (a), Yustika Syabandari (a), Minsu Ha (a), Sein Shin (b), Jun-Ki Lee (c*)
a) Division of Science Education, Kangwon National University
1 Gangwondaehak-gil, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do, 24341 Republic of Korea
b) Division of Biology Education, Chungbuk National University
Chungdae-ro 1, Seowon-Gu, Cheongju-si, Republic of Korea
c) Division of Science Education, Chonbuk National University
567 Baekje-daero, Jeonju-si, Republic of Korea
*junki[at]jbnu.ac.kr
Abstract
Even though species is the central concept in biology, the history of species and the existence of different species concept is rarely discussed in biology instruction. Whereas, the teacher can employ the plurality of species concept to enrich discussion in the classroom. Therefore, knowing the students- perception of species is essential to plan compatible teaching strategies for species. The open-ended question was administered to 548 Indonesian high school students. Initially, the semantic network analysis was performed to explore the ideas of species in students- response. To investigate the students- idea development, further analyses were conducted to observe the co-existence of normative and naïve ideas about species. Five species concepts were found which species as the lowest taxon in taxonomy (A1), species as the type of animal and plant (A2), species as the basic classification of living thing (A3), genetic species concept (A4), and morphological species concept (A5). Of five species concepts, we found naïve ideas were more robust among responses and some of them were co-existed with the normative ideas. Since the students learn the species mainly from biology instruction, it is suggested that pedagogical effort need to be well-taken in facilitating students to be more enlightened about the species.
Keywords: High school student; Ideas co-existence, Network analysis, Species concept, Species pluralism
Topic: Biology Education