Debunking Key and Lock Biology: Exploring the prevalence and persistence of students’ misconceptions on the nature and flexibility of molecular interactions

Abstract

Unless directly addressed, misconceptions can persist even in particularly capable students at- tending elite programs. To explore the presumptions that undergraduates oftwo distinguished Swiss universities have common biological misconceptions, we have used the Biological Concepts Instrument (BCI) in a pre-post-test approach (Klymkowsky 2010[1]). We find that, after 1.5 years of studying biology, students’ performance on many BCI questions is still weak, particularly on concepts related to molecular interactions including diffusion or energetic properties ofmolecules. Additionally, students’ responses are persistently influenced by misleading analogies such as the key and lock mechanism of molecular interactions. Our investigation demonstrates that the limitations of analogies, when used to explain biological processes, need to be explicitly articulated to students in an interdisciplinary perspective. Objective