"The evil virus cell": Students‘ knowledge and beliefs about viruses

Abstract

Education about virus biology at school is of pivotal interest to raise public awareness concerning means of disease transmission and, thus, methods to prevent infection, and to reduce unnecessary antibiotic treatment due to patient pressure on physicians in case of viral diseases such as influenza. This study aimed at making visible the knowledge of Austrian high school and university students with respect to virus biology, virus structure and health-education issues. The data presented here stem from comprehensive questionnaire analyses, including the task to draw a virus, from a cross-sectional study with 133 grade 7 and 199 grade 10 high school students, and 133 first-year biology and 181 first-year non-biology university students. Analyses were performed both quantitatively and qualitatively. ANOVA revealed a highly significant group effect for total knowledge relating to virus biology and health issues (F(3, 642) = 44.17, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.17). Specific post-hoc tests by means of the Tukey test showed significant differences between all groups (p < .01) with the exception of 1st year non-biology students and grade 10 high school students. Students enrolled in university-level biology outperformed all other groups, even though they had not yet encountered this topic at their courses; part of this phenomenon might be due to their affinity for learning about biological topics. However, even many first-year biology students had a high number of severe misconceptions, e.g., defining a virus as a pro- or eukaryotic cell, or falsely naming malaria as a viral disease. Since there was no significant difference in virus-related knowledge between high schools, virus biology seems to have been taught similarly among the tested schools. However, the majority of participants stated that the virus-related knowledge they had acquired at school was not sufficient. Based on the results presented here we urgently suggest improving and intensifying teaching this topic at school, since virus-related knowledge was by far too fragmentary among many participants. Such lack of health-relevant knowledge may contribute to pressure on physicians by patients to unnecessarily prescribe antibiotics, and possibly lead to potentially dangerous neglect concerning vaccination. The effectiveness of newly developed virus-related teaching units and material could be tested with the instrument used here.

An Instant Update on Viruses

“…Obviously, a large fraction of the population has severe gaps when it comes to virus-related knowledge. This assumption finds corroboration in a study by Simon et al (2017) comparing such knowledge between secondary students in grades 7 and 10 and university students in their first year, studying either biology or nonscientific subjects. Biology freshmen displayed the best knowledge in terms of viruses.…”

“…Only a few referred to vaccination as an important means to prevent contraction of certain viral diseases. Perhaps unsurprisingly, >75% of the 646 students participating in this study declared that they would want to know more about viruses, and that they had not gained sufficient virusrelated knowledge at school (Simon et al, 2017). Thus, it seems necessary to raise awareness of this topic both in preservice biology teacher education and among biology teachers at school.…”

“…This level dropped to 12% for nonbiology students. Finally, only 21 participants named measles (Simon et al, 2017). Apparently, the awareness among students that vaccination is essential to decrease the chance of contracting and spreading viral diseases like measles is very low.…”

“…Thus, it seems necessary to raise awareness of this topic both in preservice biology teacher education and among biology teachers at school. Based on the knowledge gaps identified in Simon et al (2017) and on topics explicitly named by several students in this study as of specific interest to them (e.g., "origin and evolution of viruses"), this Instant Update provides a summary of the most important facts related to viruses and offers implications for topics to heed while teaching virology at school.…”

Science|Environment|Health – the emergence of a new pedagogy of complex living systems

“…Another carefully designed study that recently emerged from the S|E|H field investigated the knowledge of Austrian students about viruses and antibiotics (Simon, Enzinger, & Fink, 2017). The authors found that students' (even undergraduate biology students') conceptual knowledge about viruses was far from deep enough to dismantle Zeyer and Dillon Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research (2019) (Sadler & Zeidler, 2005, p. 115).…”