ABSTRACT

Understanding plant reproduction is an important goal in biology education. Unfortunately, various studies show that students have difficulties in connecting the stages of plant reproduction. Students’ conceptions of the processes of sexual reproduction (e.g. pollination and seed dispersal) remain unclear, although these conceptions appear crucial for understanding plant reproduction. Therefore, the current study focuses particularly on students’ conceptions of the processes of plant reproduction. To assess students’ conceptions, we used open-ended tasks and analysed the answers through qualitative content analysis. In this contribution we present the results of the task ‘Open description of plant reproduction’, which asked students to draw and describe their ideas of plant reproduction. The task was completed by 228 Austrian students from secondary school (age 10–18). The results show that students often describe only one of the processes involved in reproduction (either pollination or seed dispersal) but rarely describe the correct consecutive order of both processes. Moreover, many students from all age groups mix pollination and seed dispersal. This implies that it is necessary to address the confusion of these processes explicitly. The presented task can further help to easily assess students’ conceptions in class and specifically address students’ difficulties and needs.

摘要

了解植物繁殖是生物学教育的重要目标。不幸的是，各种研究表明，学生在连接植物繁殖的各个阶段有困难。学生对性繁殖过程（例如授粉和种子传播）的概念仍不清楚，尽管这些概念对于理解植物繁殖至关重要。因此，当前的研究特别侧重于学生对植物繁殖过程的构想。为了评估学生的观念，我们使用了开放式的任务，并通过定性的内容分析来分析答案。在这项贡献中，我们介绍了“植物繁殖的公开描述”任务的结果，该任务要求学生画出并描述他们对植物繁殖的想法。该任务由228名来自中学的奥地利学生（年龄在10-18岁之间）完成。结果表明，学生通常仅描述生殖过程中的一个过程（授粉或种子传播），而很少描述两个过程的正确连续顺序。而且，来自各个年龄段的许多学生都将授粉和种子传播混在一起。这意味着有必要明确解决这些过程的混乱。提出的任务可以进一步帮助轻松评估学生在课堂上的观念，并特别解决学生的困难和需求。来自各个年龄段的许多学生将授粉和种子传播混在一起。这意味着有必要明确解决这些过程的混乱。提出的任务可以进一步帮助轻松评估学生在课堂上的观念，并特别解决学生的困难和需求。来自各个年龄段的许多学生将授粉和种子传播混在一起。这意味着有必要明确解决这些过程的混乱。提出的任务可以进一步帮助轻松评估学生在课堂上的观念，并特别解决学生的困难和需求。