Content analysis of misconceptions on bacteria in the biology textbook of high school

Abstract

Misconceptions on bacteria found in several sub-concepts, i.e. characteristics, structure, classification, form and shape, reproduction, and classification of gram positive and negative bacteria. Textbook is one of the factors that can lead to misconceptions. Textbooks are the teaching aids and sometimes become the only source for student regarding the concepts. The aim of this research is to identify the misconceptions in high school biology textbooks and to categorize the misconceptions in high school biology textbooks particularly on the materials of bacteria. Two textbooks were selected purposively, as the books used in two targeted high schools. The misconception was categorized based on 5 categories according to Hershey, i.e. undergeneralizations, obsolete concepts and terms, oversimplifications, overgeneralizations, and misidentifications. The result shows that there are misconceptions on both textbooks that are 7.4% undergeneralizations, 2.5% oversimplifications, 0.6% overgeneralizations, and 0.6% misidentifications. Since the misconception dominated by categories of undergeneralizations and oversimplifications, it is predicted that it will stimulate difficulties of students to construct the complete concepts.