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Teaching about Water Relations in Plant Cells: An Uneasy Struggle

University students often struggle to understand the role of water in plant cells. In particular, osmosis and plasmolysis appear to be challenging topics. This study attempted to identify student difficulties (including misconceptions) concerning osmosis and plasmolysis and examined to what extent t...

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Autores principales: Malińska, Lilianna, Rybska, Eliza, Sobieszczuk-Nowicka, Ewa, Adamiec, Małgorzata
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Cell Biology 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5132375/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27909028
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-05-0113
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author Malińska, Lilianna
Rybska, Eliza
Sobieszczuk-Nowicka, Ewa
Adamiec, Małgorzata
author_facet Malińska, Lilianna
Rybska, Eliza
Sobieszczuk-Nowicka, Ewa
Adamiec, Małgorzata
author_sort Malińska, Lilianna
collection PubMed
description University students often struggle to understand the role of water in plant cells. In particular, osmosis and plasmolysis appear to be challenging topics. This study attempted to identify student difficulties (including misconceptions) concerning osmosis and plasmolysis and examined to what extent the difficulties could be revised during a plant physiology course. A questionnaire was developed to monitor university students’ conceptual knowledge before and after a course, and both qualitative and quantitative data were obtained. The data were analyzed using the constant comparison technique and descriptive statistics. Students were found to come to university with many misconceptions that had accumulated during their education. These misconceptions are extremely difficult to change during the traditional course, which comprises lectures and practical exercises. Students’ misconceptions originate from commonly used sources such as textbooks, which are perceived as being reliable. Effective teaching of water relations in plant cells could include such didactic methods as “questioning the author,” which allow teachers to monitor students’ knowledge and help students acquire a more scientific understanding of key concepts.
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spelling pubmed-51323752016-12-06 Teaching about Water Relations in Plant Cells: An Uneasy Struggle Malińska, Lilianna Rybska, Eliza Sobieszczuk-Nowicka, Ewa Adamiec, Małgorzata CBE Life Sci Educ Article University students often struggle to understand the role of water in plant cells. In particular, osmosis and plasmolysis appear to be challenging topics. This study attempted to identify student difficulties (including misconceptions) concerning osmosis and plasmolysis and examined to what extent the difficulties could be revised during a plant physiology course. A questionnaire was developed to monitor university students’ conceptual knowledge before and after a course, and both qualitative and quantitative data were obtained. The data were analyzed using the constant comparison technique and descriptive statistics. Students were found to come to university with many misconceptions that had accumulated during their education. These misconceptions are extremely difficult to change during the traditional course, which comprises lectures and practical exercises. Students’ misconceptions originate from commonly used sources such as textbooks, which are perceived as being reliable. Effective teaching of water relations in plant cells could include such didactic methods as “questioning the author,” which allow teachers to monitor students’ knowledge and help students acquire a more scientific understanding of key concepts. American Society for Cell Biology 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC5132375/ /pubmed/27909028 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-05-0113 Text en © 2016 L. Malińska et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2016 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology.
spellingShingle Article
Malińska, Lilianna
Rybska, Eliza
Sobieszczuk-Nowicka, Ewa
Adamiec, Małgorzata
Teaching about Water Relations in Plant Cells: An Uneasy Struggle
title Teaching about Water Relations in Plant Cells: An Uneasy Struggle
title_full Teaching about Water Relations in Plant Cells: An Uneasy Struggle
title_fullStr Teaching about Water Relations in Plant Cells: An Uneasy Struggle
title_full_unstemmed Teaching about Water Relations in Plant Cells: An Uneasy Struggle
title_short Teaching about Water Relations in Plant Cells: An Uneasy Struggle
title_sort teaching about water relations in plant cells: an uneasy struggle
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5132375/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27909028
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-05-0113
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