2024 Volume 48 Issue 4 Pages 560-573
The Genetics Society of Japan pointed out that using terms about dominance and recessiveness in science education leads to the misconception that traits are superior or inferior, and proposed a change in terminology in 2017. In response to the proposal, current junior high school science textbooks changed the terms about dominance and recessiveness. To examine whether this terminological change suppressed the formation of misconceptions, we conducted a questionnaire survey of first-year high school students who studied genetics before the terminological change and junior high school students who studied genetics the year after the terminological change. The influence of the context of the questionnaire was also examined. The results suggested that the number of students with the misconception that dominant and recessive traits are “related to survival advantage/disadvantage” decreased, but the number of students with the misconception that “the dominant trait is the one with the highest frequency in the population.” may have increased. The misconception that dominance/recessiveness is related to frequency in the population was more common than the misconception that dominance/recessiveness is related to “survival advantage or disadvantage,” and it was inferred that the learning of mating results between Aa (○:△=3:1) influenced the formation of this misconception.
