Primary and secondary school teachers understanding of some selected biological concepts: Turkish student teachers and teachers; [Comprensión de los profesores de escuela primaria y secundaria de algunos conceptos biológicos seleccionados: Candidatos a profesor y profesores]

This study aims to investigate the understanding of some essential biological concepts for both the biology student teachers, biology teachers teaching biology in secondary schools, and pre-service science teachers teaching science in primary schools. The General Biological Misconceptions Test (GBMT) developed by Benrhisel (1999) which consists of 15-item instruments, each item consisting of a two-tier test questionnaire was administrated to the samplles. Data analysis was done by using descriptive analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Frequencies and percentages were obtained. The results showed that biology teachers gain higher scores than the student teachers. However, all respondents have many misconceptions. In addition, there is no difference among the preservice and in service teachers, statistically (p<.05). In order to remove their misconceptions about the essential biological concepts, it is suggested that science teachers, science teacher candidates, pre service biology teachers and biology teachers should be instructed by contemporary teaching methods. In addition, the preservice teachers can reduce their misconceptions in an appropriate learning environment.