Misconception of Senior High School Science Students on Evaporation and Water Cycle

Science educators agree that everyday activities enable children to learn some science even before entering preschool education and that children’s ideas are part of the classroom. Some of these ideas will not be completely correct. Misconceptions refer to children’s incorrect or incomplete ideas. This study conducted was based on students’ drawings and interviews. It was held with the aim of determining the misconceptions of science students receiving education in Senior High Schools in Ghana about evaporation and water cycle. There are a number of techniques that can be used to indicate misconceptions of students. These include open ended questions, two-stage diagnosis tests, concept maps, word association and interviews. In addition, science educators have started to use drawing methods in order to ensure that students understand science and to obtain knowledge about their misconceptions recently. As a result of analysis of drawings and interviews, it was seen that more than half of that students have comprehensive or partially conceptual knowledge, but approximately one fourth of students have misconceptions about this subject. It is recommended that science education should focus on studying natural cycles in context of their effects on daily lives of humans instead of separating these cycles into specific scientific fields. This will provide fundamental instruments for students to appreciate that these concepts deal with both ecology and environment.