Analysis of misconceptions and alternative conceptions on the concept of ecology in senior secondary school online biology resources

Abstract

Studies have established that misconceptions and alternative conceptions held by students are major barriers to meaningful learning of difficult concepts in Biology, and their sources have been traced to teachers, students, and Biology textbooks. The proliferation of e-learning in recent time due to COVID 19 pandemic has mount more pressure on the need for online resources consumption. Literature has it that difficult topics in biology were the most online resource visited frequently which the concept of Ecology falls into difficult topic to teach and to learn in biology. It is yet to be established if online Biology resources contain misconceptions and alternative conceptions in online content related to the concept of Ecology. The survey type of descriptive research method was adopted in the study. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 90 online Biology resources which were grouped into three categories based on ownerships i.e. educational institutional, corporate organization, and blogger websites. Three instruments, namely; Misconceptions in Online Biology Resource Content Analysis Template (MOBRCAT), and Alternative Conceptions in Online Biology resources Content Analysis Template (ACOBRCAT) and a questionnaire, “Students’ Frequently Visited Biology Websites (SFVBW)” were the researcher designed instruments used for data gathering. The findings of the study were that: misconceptions and alternative conceptions existed in the contents of senior school online resources on Ecology on websites hosted by bloggers (100%), and none on educational institution websites and corporate organization websites. This implies that online resources are also a source of misconceptions and alternative conceptions of Biology concepts, which could contribute to students’ poor performance in Biology. It was therefore recommended that Biology students, teachers, and researchers need to be sensitive and selective on the categories of websites that hosted online Biology resources.