An Analysis of the Concepts that Should be Taught to Achieve Class Objectives of Genetics Unit in Biology

The researchers who are studying biology and teachers who are teaching biology think that the genetics-related concepts are highly significant than other concepts in biology. With such background, researches on the identification of major concepts have been under way to guide in biology class. Minimal research has been carried out, however, on what concepts should be taught to achieve the specific objectives of the class in relation to the unit of genetics in middle and high school. Accordingly this study was designed to determine the concepts of genetics that should be taught to achieve the objectives of the genetics unit in secondary school. For this purpose 5 instructional objectives of the genetics unit on the 9th grade and 4 instructional objectives of Biology I were selected and the concepts that were taught to achieve class objectives. The survey was conducted among 114 science teachers from middle schools and 85 biology teachers from high schools. The results indicated that 9.1 and 10.2 concepts on average were taught in the 9th grade and in Biology I respectively. Moreover statistical difference in the number of concepts that were taught according to the teachers' teaching experiences appeared among the middle school teachers (p<.05). But such statistical difference did not appear among the high school teachers (p>.05). Furthermore the concepts for the 9th grade consist of the basic genetics concepts although Biology I concepts were integrated and advanced contents for same concepts. Thus this finding suggests that concepts of genetics units to be taught in middle and high school were in linkage.