Do Student Misconceptions about Mutations Persist throughout College Education?

Abstract

Genetics is a widely discussed topic both within and outside of science. One particular topic in genetics that is readily encountered outside of the science classroom is mutations. Students encounter mutations through several different avenues (e.g., news, comic books, movies) that may not be scientifically correct. This pre‐exposure to genetics concepts has the potential to misinform their ideas before ever enrolling in a genetics course. Because of this misinformation, genetics can be difficult for students because of the inconsistences in complex terminology, abstract concepts, and having to think across multiple scales. In order for instructors to create curricula for students, they first need to understand the misconceptions of genetics students may bring into the classroom. Instructors also need to understand if their practice is allowing students to overcome their misconceptions or if they are persistent throughout the students' education. The aim of this project is to 1) understand students' misconceptions about mutations and 2) determine if these misconceptions persist as student progress through their undergraduate education. A draft mutations concept inventory was used to collect responses from 454 students in introductory and advanced genetics courses, as well as introductory biology and advanced microbiology courses. The multiple choice questions included a correct answer and distractors from known misconceptions. Utilizing non‐metric dimensional scaling, data was visualized to determine which misconceptions persisted across different courses and which were resolved or created. Further studies aim to more fully explore conceptual understanding and specific misconception types by student group and so that instructors can provide resources that will enable students to gain an accurate conceptual understanding of mutations within genetics, microbiology, and molecular biology.Support or Funding InformationNSF Award #1710262This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.