Understanding of Mitosis and Meiosis in Higher Secondary Students of Northeast India and the Implications for Genetics Education

Cell division, perhaps the most important is among the most difficult topics in biology to teach. With respect to the observation of the previous study on understanding of ‘genetic information’ in higher secondary (junior college level) students, the present study was carried out to examine the same students’ understanding of mitosis and meiosis. A total of 289 students from three undergraduate colleges were given written questionnaire having both fixed and free answer-type questions. It was found that students had a wide range of misconceptions in the process of cell division. The types of alternative concepts were identified in this study. The study revealed that a significant number of students did not understand the primary differences between the two cell division processes, the importance of the maintenance of chromosome numbers in mitosis, the significance of the formation of germ cells with haploid number of chromosomes and the recombination events taking place during meiosis and their implications. This results corroborates the earlier study among middle school children, conducted by the “Learning in Science Research Group” of Leeds University in UK. The probable reasons for the confusions surfaced in this study and the possible approaches to overcome the difficulties in classroom teaching of cell division processes, particularly in countries like India are discussed in this paper.