Diagnosing Students’ Understanding of Energy and Its Related Concepts in Biological Context

Abstract

This study diagnosed the understanding about energy and biologicalcontext energy concepts held by 90 first-year South African university biology students. In particular, students' explanations of energy in a biological context, how energy is involved in different biological situations and whether energy is present and what types of energy are involved in diagrams depicting biological phenomena were investigated. The pencil-and-paper diagnostic test, specifically designed for this study, was used to elicit students' understanding using test items involving biological phenomena. The results showed that many students had problems in understanding energy and energy-related concepts in the following areas: First, the majority of the students provided definitions of energy rather than the explanations they were asked to provide, and the definition could have been rote-learned. Second, although nearly all students knew the energy conservation principle (energy cannot be created or destroyed), many of them were unable to apply this concept to biological contexts. Third, many students erroneously claimed that the energy for metabolism and life processes is made available during photosynthesis in plants, during digestion in animals or that this energy comes directly from the sun. Fourth, about two thirds of the students erroneously indicated that there is no energy involved/present in inanimate objects such as a statue. The implications for the teaching and learning of energy and its related concepts and recommendations for further research are discussed.

How Do Students Understand Energy in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics? Development and Validation of an Assessment Instrument

“…pendulums, Duit, 1984). While previous findings identified energy knowledge transfer between disciplines as a major learning hurdle (Chabalengula et al, 2011), learning transfer from the less complex physics contexts may also provide a starting point from which to access more complex contexts in other disciplines. However, transfers in the opposite direction must also be considered for coherent energy instruction, as early, and often implicit learning opportunities in biological contexts can form a basis for later, more explicit energy instruction (Opitz et al, 2015).…”

“…Forde, 2003;Opitz et al, 2015). Chabalengula et al (2011) found that even university students exhibit difficulties in transferring energy contents from physics to biological contexts, thereby raising the question how energy understanding is related between disciplinary contexts (Lancor, 2015).…”

“…It is not yet well understood in what ways students draw on different disciplinary contexts when learning about energy and what hurdles they encounter in transferring knowledge across these contexts (Chabalengula et al, 2011;Hirça et al, 2008). The findings in this study suggest strong correlations in energy understanding across disciplines.…”

Energy conservation in dissipative processes: Teacher expectations and strategies associated with imperceptible thermal energy

“…The general consensus of this research, using both real and idealized contexts, is that many students and some teachers have difficulty understanding and applying energy conservation [3,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. One study explicitly describes the transformation from kinetic to thermal energy as problematic in secondary education: interviews with 34 German students (15-16 years old) reveal that after physics instruction, students "have difficulties in using the idea of the transformation of kinetic energy to heat energy to explain relevant processes" ( [10], p. 99).…”

¿Cómo se conceptualiza la energía en las unidades didácticas de biología?

“…La bibliografía en didáctica de la energía en biología se centra principalmente en la conceptualización del ATP y en el estudio de la energía en la fotosíntesis (Çakir, 2002;Ferreiro, 2008;Texeira, 2000;Melillan, 2006). O la más actual centrada en la conceptualización del término, que suele analizar al alumnado universitario o al profesorado (Chabalengula, 2012;Liu, 2002;Saglam-Arslan, 2010;Domenech, 2013).…”