What do the prospective science teachers know about human eye?

Students learn the concepts in informal and formal learning environments. Students get into the formal learning environments either with or without having prior knowledge. The students construct the concepts in their minds with their daily experiences (Ünal & Coştu, 2005), observations (Erginer, 2006) and intuitive perceptions (Seiger-Ehrenberg, 1981; Havu-Nuutinen, 2005). While the children are constructing the concepts, they may be developing alternative concepts which are not scientifically correct (Driver & Easley, 1978). It is not easy for the students to exchange these alternative concepts. In the teaching process, determining of the students’ alternative concepts is important and essential for preparing effective teaching activities, environments and providing meaningful learning (Novak, 1988; Dekkers & Thijs, 1998; Erginer, 2006). Researches indicate that students have alternative conceptions related to various biology concepts in the literature (Cerrah-Özsevgeç, 2007; Köse, 2008; Mutlu & Özel, 2008; Özgür & Çıldır Pelitoğlu, 2008; Parker et al., 2012; Oztas & Oztas, 2012; Ozay Kose & Hasenekoglu, 2011). The structure of human eye, human eye defects, its treatment methods, vision and image formation concepts are among the biology topics in which understanding difficulties and alternative concepts are experienced.

The research available in the literature on human eye is limited. These researches are about material development to teach the structure of human eye (Mauser, 2011; Rule & Welch, 2008), vision and the formation of images (Ahçı, 2012; Çiftçi & Çökelez, 2012; Kara, Erduran Avcı & Çekbaş, 2008; Saka, Akdeniz & Enginar, 2002) and human eye defects (Güneş, 2006). Human eye defects and its treatment methods, vision and the image concepts are directly related to biology and physics courses (Ahçı, 2012; Dilek & Sahin, 2013).

It is not known whether the Prospective Science Teachers (PSTs) know human eye sufficiently or not. PSTs will teach human eye to the primary school students in the future. Therefore it is necessary for them to have domain knowledge consistent with scientific facts and the capability to transfer that knowledge correctly to their students. It is considered that teachers who have poor domain knowledge can cause misconceptions rather than meaningful information in their students’ minds (Kara et al., 2008; Sezen & Çimer, 2009). So, as a necessity is seen that investigating of both teachers’ and prospective teachers’ understanding difficulties and domain knowledge proficiency.

When individuals relate knowledge to their everyday life concept, they can learn meaningfully (Özay Köse & Çam Tosun, 2011). In the physics course, human eye is an example from daily life that covers issues such as lenses, light refraction and vision (Mullin, 1996; Dilek & Sahin, 2013). Furthermore, one of the fundamental purposes of Science and Technology education is to increase the number of individuals who are literate in science and technology (MNE, 2006a). The science and technology knowledge of individuals involves their understanding of the nature of the science, knowing science and using this knowledge for their own benefits by relating it to their daily life. Therefore, the solution is to propose alternative concepts which will contribute to the students’ literacy in science. So firstly, alternative concepts for students should be determined. An individual, who is shortsighted in other words he/she cannot see far but not aware that he has myopia, might not know which lens he should use. This is a worrisome indicator that the individual has insufficient science knowledge. When PSTs have knowledge about the structure of human eye, this can support their teaching activities in other science subjects. Determining the background knowledge of the PSTs about human eye will draw attention to learning and teaching of “human eye" concept. This study examined the views of the PSTs about human eye with different probing understanding techniques in depth. It is believed that the results of this study will be encouraging to use the concept probing understanding techniques. The purpose of this study was to investigate the alternative concepts and background knowledge of the PSTs’ about human eye.