Misconceptions about the menstrual cycle among students of the teaching major of the integrated study of biology and chemistry

Abstract

A large number of scientific articles shown that misconceptions about the menstrual cycle are widespread in different populations and that the level of education has no significant effect on this phenomenon. The most common misconceptions are that that ovulation occurs in the middle of the cycle or that ovulation occurs on the fourteenth day of the cycle. It was found that the recorded misconceptions origin from the representation of the 28-day menstrual cycle that is present in all educational materials, without exception. Despite the solution found, the teaching material did not change. The aim of this research was to determine the presence of misconceptions about the menstrual cycle among students of the Integrated undergraduate and graduate programme Biology and Chemistry Education and their ability to determine the day of ovulation in a cycle that does not last 28 days. Furthermore, another aim was to compare the results of the university students with the results of a previously conducted research on a sample of high school students in Zagreb, published in 2018. The research was conducted on a sample of a total of 98 students in a period of six years, from 2012 to 2017. The results show that the proportion of students who accurately determined the day of ovulation is small and not significantly higher than the results achieved by high school students, and that the proportion of misconceptions in their explanations is very high. Furthermore, results show that, despite repeated teaching about the menstrual cycle or perhaps because of teaching with the help of inappropriate visual material, the occurrence of misconceptions is more pronounced among university students than among high school students.