A Study of Elementary Students학 Concepts on Biological Adaptation

초등학생들이 가진 생물학적 적응 개념에 관한 조사 연구

The purpose of this research is to provide useful data in forming sound scientific concepts by investigating elementary students' non-scientific concepts related to their concepts of biological adaptation, and by analyzing the general inclinations and causes of some misconceptions. Twenty-four objective questions were designed to be given to 5th and 6th grade elementary students in order to investigate their concepts of biological adaptation. According to the test results, they formed scientific concepts in most questions. But they appeared to have many misconceptions in some parts which should be guided by the teacher's additional explanations rather than by the education curricula's focus. There are some cases where the 6th grade students had more misconceptions than the 5th grade students who were not systemically taught the concepts of biological adaptation, for the reasons of strengthening or maintaining the misconceptions by confusing the contents of learning. Male and female students have different scientific concepts of different questions according to their interest and attention. Therefore, it is necessary to develop various teaching-learning data which can help the teachers' additional explanations about the concepts of biological adaptation and invoke students' interest and attention, and to seek appropriate measures to form sound scientific concepts among teachers as well as students.