Exploring Students’ Misconceptions and their Causes in Photosynthesis and Respiration: A Case Study of a Private Sector School of Sukkur, Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract The aim of this study is to find out the misconceptions about the photosynthesis and respiration processes and their causes among elementary levels of Science students. When students come into the classrooms they have a lot of misconceptions/ alternative ideas based on their previous understanding, learning experiences, and observation of their surroundings. It started from the initial level where children construct their knowledge by observing the world. These ideas, beliefs, observations, and make their preconceptions. This research had been conducted to find out the misconceptions about respiration and photosynthesis and their causes.  The nature of this research study is an exploratory case study from the private school of Sukkur, Sindh. Semi-structured interviews and unstructured observations were done to conduct the data for this research study to investigate the misconceptions in Science. One private school was selected for this research in Sukkur. The sample size for this research was eight students in class eight and two science teachers. Four girls and four boys were chosen and two teachers, one male, and one female were chosen to conduct the data. The semi-structured interviews were recorded by teachers and students and then translated and transcribed. After that, read the code and identify the patterns. The codes were assigned to the responses of participants based on similarities and differences. The themes were extracted from the coding of the responses and categorized into seven themes and one sub-theme. It was determined that students had many misconceptions about photosynthesis and respiration processes.