UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ KNOWLEDGE AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT CELL STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS

This study aims to assess the level of understanding of biology students and to identify their misconceptions about cell concepts. Participants of the study (n=160) were students enrolled in biology undergraduate level. Data analysis showed that the students had cell-related misconceptions. The misconceptions were found in four basic competencies of the cell concepts. The most common misconceptions (55.68%) among students are those related to the relationship between the structure and function of the nucleus and endoplasmic reticulum. We denote that most of the students have assimilated the concepts related to the chemical constituents of the cell. There are several potential factors that cause the occurrence of misconceptions among the participants in this study, including low retention of knowledge obtained in previous school levels, lack of learning resources, incomprehensible terms, and low interest of biology students in cell concepts. Article visualizations