Abstract

This study aimed to display the level of students’ conceptual understanding of the cell concept. The study attempted to explore how students had conceptually constructed the general shape of the cell, the organelles and their positions within a cell and the definition of the cell and then compared grade 6, 9 and 11 students’ representations of the cell concept. A conceptual understanding test was developed and used as data collection instrument by the researchers. Results showed that students tended to prefer animal cells rather than plant cells in their drawings. The proportion of students who drew animal cells was observed to increase from grade 6 to 11. Regarding students’ drawings of organelles and their positions within the cell, students had a firm grasp of the place of the nucleus, but the positions of the cell membrane and the cell wall were mixed. A lack of congruity in students’ representations of other organelles led us to believe that students merely memorize the names of the organelles and place them randomly somewhere between the nucleus and the cell membrane. Students perceived the nucleus, mitochondrium and ribosome as the most important organelles in a cell.

Key words: Cell concept, student drawings, fried-egg model, primary school, secondary school.