Glucose as the sole metabolic fuel: Overcoming a misconception using conceptual change to teach the energy‐yielding metabolism to Brazilian high school students

Abstract

A misconception regarding the human metabolism has been shown to be widespread among high school students. The students consider glucose as the sole metabolic fuel, disregarding that lipids and amino acids can be oxidized for ATP production by human cells. This misconception seems to be a consequence of formal teaching in grade and high schools. The present study reports the evaluation of a teaching strategy based on the use of a dialogic teaching methodology within a conceptual change approach to remediate that misconception. Students were stimulated to formulate hypotheses, outline experiments, and to discuss their outcomes. The results showed that students were able to reformulate their original concepts immediately after teaching. The majority of the students showed adequate learning of the topic eight months after the application of the teaching strategy, although some level of misconception recurrence was observed. The educational consequences of the teaching unit are discussed in the context of the possible reasons for its success as well as the need for similar initiatives at grade school to avoid the establishment of the misconception.