Existing ideas and Misconceptions about Natural Selection among Vietnamese Students

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the student’s existing ideas and misconception about natural selection in Vietnamese. This is a cross sectional survey among biology undergraduate students, including quantitative and qualitative. The instrument for present study was developed in order to measure students existing’s ideas and misconceptions using previous questions from Baumgartnerand Duncan. Data collection and data analysis were covered definition, understanding and attitudes about natural selection. The results revealed that 61.4% of biology undergraduate students had misconception and none of the student had the correct concept about natural selection. The proportions of misconception in final year student (35.5%) which was significantly lower than first year students (75.4%). There were numerous existing idea and misconception about natural selection among biology students. Correct understanding about natural selection was high and it was higher in the final year students than first year students. Attitude about natural selection between the final year students and first year students were comparable.Future invention should be conducted to improve learning and teaching about natural selection for Vietnamese students.