Pre-Service Biology Teachers' Alternative Conceptions about Seed Plants

Thirty-two second year pre-service teachers who were enrolled in a laboratorycourse about the taxonomy of seed plants participated in this study. Before the instruction,13 open-ended questions which assess students’ understanding about seed plant wereadministered to all students. These open-ended questions were developed to identifystudents’ alternative conceptions in a variety of topics including seed plants and non-seedplants, flowering plants, flower, single and composite flower, seed, fruit, single andcompound fruit, pollination, fertilization, the relationship among flower, fruit and seed,naked seed plants and covered seed plants, monocotyledon and dicotyledon plants.Besides open-ended questions students were given the names of several plants and theywere asked to classify them as seed or non-seed plants and as flowering or non-floweringplants. After examining students’ answers to open-ended and matching questions, 5students were selected for semi-structured interviews.