Plant-Animal Tissue Diagnostic Test (PATD-Test) to identify students' misconceptions in biology

Abstract

Plant and animal tissue material is an important concept to understand because besides dealing with the next material, it becomes the basis for the application of technology in modern biology such as stem cells and plant tissue culture. This study aims to identify students' misconceptions about plant and animal tissue topics in biology. Plant-Animal Tissue Diagnostic Test (PATD-Test) has been valid and reliable consisting of three-tier, including multiple-choice questions with five answer options, choice of reasons, and confidence in the answers chosen for each item. Participants in this study were 758 high school students. PATD-Test results showed that 27.20% of students had misconceptions in plant tissue material and 23.90% in animal tissue. The highest percentage of misconceptions occurs in indicators structure-functions of parenchyma, with a percentage of 48.15%. As for animal tissue, the highest misconception is shown in the indicator structure-function of squamous epithelium with a percentage of 35.88% 41.69%. Furthermore, PATD-Test can be developed to diagnose misconceptions on a broad range with more comprehensive sub-concepts and accompanied by an analysis of misconception factors, one of which is in high school biology textbooks.