ABSTRACT The media coverage of virus and vaccine information revealed the limited knowledge and vastly differing perspectives the public has about these topics. Although critically important, there is a dearth of research on students’ conceptions of vaccines and viruses and their sources of information. In this mixed-methods study, elementary, middle, and high school students were surveyed and interviewed about their knowledge and sources of information related to vaccines and viruses. Participants (n = 227) completed a survey, and 33 participants were randomly selected for follow-up interviews. Results showed students at all grade levels reported learning most of their knowledge about viruses and vaccines outside of school, with parents/guardians being reported as the most frequent source of information. The study found that even young elementary students have significant knowledge of viruses and vaccines, often holding complex concepts. The results documented students’ beliefs, concepts, and inaccurate knowledge of viruses and vaccines, as well as how outside sources affected these perspectives. There was evidence that at higher grades, students are increasingly learning about vaccines and viruses from media. These findings support initiating virus and vaccine education at lower grade levels and establishing standards that equip educators with teaching guidelines to direct their instruction on these subjects.

ABSTRACT Understanding genetic information flow, exchange, and storage (IFES) is essential in biology education, yet pre-service teachers (PSTs) often struggle with these core concepts. This small-scale qualitative study explores PSTs’ conceptual understanding and misconceptions through an eight-week elective seminar course, where reflective journals were analysed using qualitative content analysis. An IFES conceptual framework was developed, and a rubric-based evaluation assessed PSTs’ learning progress, followed by a heatmap visualisation of their conceptual development. Findings reveal that deterministic reasoning persists, particularly in gene expression, inheritance, and environmental regulation of genes. Many PSTs oversimplify protein synthesis, misunderstand RNA’s role, and demonstrate limited awareness of epigenetic mechanisms. While some conceptual improvements were observed, none of the PSTs achieved the highest level of integration in any IFES category, highlighting the need for improved instructional strategies in teacher education programmes. This study contributes to biology teacher education by introducing an IFES rubric and framework to assess and enhance PSTs’ genetics comprehension. The findings suggest that inquiry-based learning, explicit discussions of misconceptions, and interdisciplinary approaches could support deeper conceptual integration. Future research should examine longitudinal interventions with larger, multi-site samples to confirm these patterns and to better address PSTs’ persistent misconceptions and improve genetics instruction in teacher preparation programmes.

ABSTRACT Fungi, plants and animals are the main multicellular kingdoms, terrestrial and visible for humans. Most articles in the field of scientific and biological education, however, focus on plants and animals, with texts on fungi being scant. While there has been an acknowledgement of and interest in plant awareness, the same cannot be said about fungi, which clearly do not receive much attention. We analyse the number of articles published and our results show a lower number on fungi than on plants and animals due to what we might call low fungal awareness. This trend is also found amongst high school students and university students studying for Education degrees who were asked to make a list of living beings and to rank how much they liked animals, plants, and fungi. The highest percentage corresponded to animals, a small percentage to plants, and very few indicated fungi, also being the least liked. Thus, knowledge of all three of these different groups of living beings should be promoted in education in order to overcome our species’ biases with regard to them and to allow people to better interpret the natural environment.

ABSTRACT This paper presents a framework developed from a study designed to explore teachers’ Discourse during genetics teaching in three secondary schools in Johannesburg. Scholars in the field of Discourse have addressed this important issue of the structure of Discourse. Nonetheless, very little has been done on Discourse concerning the construction of scientific knowledge. Data was collected from four teachers who were observed and video-recorded three times each while teaching genetics concepts to grade 12 students and interviewed once. The observation transcripts were analysed using Lemke’s Thematic Analysis amalgamated with Mortimer and Scott’s Communicative Approaches and Discourse patterns. The key findings uncovered in this study expose two types of teachers: conceptually focused and assessment focused. Conceptually focused teachers used strategies that assisted their students in developing a conceptual understanding of the genetics concepts. Conversely, assessment focused teachers taught their students for high achievement in formal assessments. These findings were used to develop a framework referred to as the Discourse Teaching Strategy Model. This study contributes to the effective teaching of genetics and other topics by offering a model to guide thinking about the planning and development of science teaching and reflecting upon one’s teaching strategies.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to integrate group metacognitive scaffolds into project-based learning (PBL) in biology classes to improve the collaborative problem-solving skills (CPS) of high-school students. The study designed and implemented four projects, ‘Designing space meals for astronauts’, ‘Cell decryption’, ‘Blade carving’ and ‘The life course of the cell’, based on the 10th-grade biology curriculum in China, and involved 27 Grade-10 students from a high school. The quasi-experimental repeated measure method was used to evaluate the students’ improvement in CPS skills, with pre-, mid- and post-tests; classroom observation of the CPS process; various students’ created products in groups and the group metacognitive scaffolds filled out by each group in the four projects. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods were employed. The research findings show significant improvement in students’ overall performance and three dimensions (the three dimensions are ‘Establishing and maintaining shared understanding’, ‘Taking appropriate action to solve the problem’ and ‘Establishing and maintaining team organisation’), with more pronounced improvement between the mid-test and post-test than between the pre-test and mid-test. The findings imply that PBL using group metacognitive scaffolding is conducive to developing high-school students’ CPS skills in biology learning.

ABSTRACT The goal of the present study was to assess biology students’ level of understanding and identify their misconceptions about cellular concepts. We conducted a questionnaire survey followed by interviews. Study participants (n = 620) were students enrolled in a biology degree programme. Data analysis showed that students had low knowledge of the basic characteristics of cells. Misconceptions were identified in all four core competencies of cell biology education. The most identified common misconceptions concerned the relationship between the structure and function of the cell membrane, nucleus and endoplasmic reticulum. Students have difficulty making the connection between cellular transport and its relationship to the structure of the plasma membrane. Students also struggled to make the connection between the different levels of organisation (macroscopic, microscopic and molecular). However, most students understood the concepts related to the chemical constituents of cells. Several potential factors are responsible for the appearance of misconceptions among the participants in this study, including levels, failure to use learning resources to visualise the various phenomena that take place in the cell, incomprehensible terms, and complexity of the processes and mechanisms of cell biology which, to understand them, require recourse to concepts taught in other disciplines such as physics and chemistry.

ABSTRACT This study investigates the process of students’ metacognitive learning about homeostasis, a fundamental biological principle. The research aimed to determine how the metacognitive awareness learning approach (MCLA) affects student perceptions of homeostasis. The research participants were 146 Israeli 10th-grade students (ages 15–16) who were divided into two groups: The MCLA group (MCLAG) (n = 92) received guidance according to the MCLA. The control group (CG) (n = 54) did not receive such guidance. Results disclose the contribution of the MCLA to a better understanding of homeostasis, a fundamental biological principle. Quantitative findings indicate higher achievements by students in the intervention group. Qualitative findings showed differential conceptual understandings regarding homeostasis characteristics, as follows: the MCLA distinctively promoted the following characteristics of homeostasis: efficiency, dynamics of a homeostatic process, and environments. Other characteristics, such as coordination and lack of randomness, control regulation, feedback mechanisms, and multi-systems, were partially promoted by the MCLA. Regarding the energy characteristics, however, the students faced significant challenges in understanding the energy element in the context of homeostasis, indicating a potential for future research. We can deduce that the MCLA can potentially promote the students’ understanding of homeostasis. These results may guide teachers to convey fundamental principles in biology more effectively.