Students' Misconceptions about Diffusion: How Can They Be Eliminated?

D IFFUSION is a concept that students in high school biology should understand. Yet there is much evidence to the contrary. For example, in one study (Marek 1986a) only 1.8% of the high school biology students demonstrated an understanding of diffusion while 62.5% had no response or exhibited misunderstandings about diffusion. In a related study, Westbrook and Marek (1991) discovered that despite instruction, misconceptions about diffusion persisted. They found that college freshmen in zoology expressed as many misconceptions about diffusion as seventh-grade life science students (37% and 38%, respectively). The presence and persistence of such misconceptions have been widely reported in recent years. Many studies have also investigated possible sources or causes of these misconceptions of fundamental science concepts (Adeniyi 1985; Wandersee 1986).