Abstract:

It is a reality that many events which we come across or observe in our daily life are related with science. When individuals comprehend the relationship between the events which effect their lives and the knowledge they gained from school, this makes great contribution to their meaningful learning. In order to achieve meaningful and permanent learning, first of all, the misconceptions of students should be determined. The aim of this study was to identify prospective science teachers’ misconceptions concerning photosynthesis and respiration in plants. The sample of this study consists of 100 prospective science teachers who attended at Department of Science Education in Fatih Education Faculty in Karadeniz Technical University in Trabzon in Turkiye. Prospective science teachers’ misconceptions were identified by using “Photosynthesis and Respiration in Plants Concept Test”, including two-tier multiple choice format with 20 items. Findings indicated that most of the prospective science teachers hold misconceptions about photosynthesis and respiration in plants, such as “Only green plants can carry out photosynthesis”, “Photosynthesis is a gas exchange process”, “Respiration in plants occurs only at night”, “Respiration in plants occurs only in the leaves”, “Photosynthesis is reverse of respiration”, “Plants obtain their food from water”, “Plants’ food is water”. The reasons of these were detected to stem from students’ prior knowledge, the difference between scientific language and daily language and text books. In order to avoid the misconceptions about this issue, the effective methods in removing misconceptions such as concept map and conceptual change texts usage are suggested.

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