International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science

Submission Deadline- 16th April 2025
April Issue of 2025 : Publication Fee: 30$ USD Submit Now
Submission Deadline-05th April 2025
Special Issue on Economics, Management, Sociology, Communication, Psychology: Publication Fee: 30$ USD Submit Now
Submission Deadline-20th April 2025
Special Issue on Education, Public Health: Publication Fee: 30$ USD Submit Now

Assessing Secondary School Students’ Understandings of Biological Prefixes and Suffixes in Kakata Educational District, Margibi County, Liberia

  • Hassan Bob Rogers
  • Sorna F. Sherif
  • Clifford Konah Jr
  •   Saywalla S. Jallah
  • 587-596
  • Mar 28, 2025
  • Education

Assessing Secondary School Students’ Understandings of Biological Prefixes and Suffixes in Kakata Educational District, Margibi County, Liberia

Hassan Bob Rogers1, Sorna F. Sherif2, Clifford Konah Jr.3, Saywalla S. Jallah4

1,2Kakata Rural Teacher Training Institute (KRTTI)

3,4Bureau  of Teacher Education, Ministry of Education

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.90300047

Received: 15 February 2025; Accepted: 24 February 2025; Published: 28 March 2025

ABSTRACT

Understanding biological prefixes and suffixes is paramount for any student who opts to follow a career path leading to any of the branches of biology. Understanding and spelling biology terminologies is a serious challenge for many secondary school students, which leads them to the conclusion that studying biology is difficult, causing many secondary school students to shy away from studying biology at tertiary institutions. The population sampled for the study was one hundred senior secondary students in the Kakata Educational District of Margibi County. The study lasted for two months. The methodology employed for the study was a descriptive survey design.  The objectives of this study were: a) To assess students’ understanding of common prefixes and suffixes of biological terminologies, b) To assess students’ abilities in identifying the correct prefixes and suffixes from biological terminologies. The study’s findings established that the  majority of the students did not understand and struggled with writing the correct or acceptable meanings of biological prefixes and suffixes. Furthermore, the study’s findings indicated that 63-99% of students wrote the wrong or incorrect meanings of biological prefixes and suffixes, while less than 38% correctly wrote (understood) the acceptable meanings of biological prefixes and suffixes. However, 54%-87% of students could identify and write both correct or acceptable biological prefixes and suffixes only. The study recommends that biology teachers develop teaching strategies-specifically teaching biological morphemes to enhance students’ understandings of biological terminologies, by decoding them into prefixes and suffixes, to enhancing students’ abilities to form plural and singular forms of biological terms, and in addition, to enhance student’s ability in forming plural and singular forms of biological terminologies as well as helping students read aloud to become familiar and fluent in pronouncing biological terminologies.

Keywords: Biological terminology, Prefixes, suffixes, Secondary students, Understanding,

INTRODUCTION

Understanding biological terminologies are essential for anyone or a student interested in pursuing a career in any field of biology  (McComas et al., 2018). Many high school and college students find biological terminologies confusing and difficult to comprehend (Seah, 2016). Furthermore, biological terms are typically derived from languages such as Latin, Greek, and German. These languages are foreign, rarely taught in African high schools, and are not the mother tongues of many African students. The terminologies use in the various branches of biology are lengthy, filled with numerous consonants, challenging to spell and pronounce, and frequently difficult for students to remember. As a result, it can be difficult for students to retain a clearer meaning of biological terminologies (Fang, 2005).

The formation and differentiation of biological terminology involving plural and singular forms, is crucial for developing students’ biological literacy and understanding as well. Numerous terms used in biology require an understanding of biological prefixes and suffixes (Rasinski et al., 2011). When teachers teach biological terminologies using the suffixes and prefixes of biological terminologies, students will learn more about those terms (McAllister et al., 2022). This research will focus on assessing senior students’ understanding of biological terminologies on objective questions in paper one of The West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The study was guided by the following objectives:

  1. To assess students’ understandings of common prefixes and suffixes of biological terminologies appearing in prescribed textbooks and on national exams.
  2. To assess students’ abilities in writings the correct prefixes and suffixes from biological terminologies.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Students’ biological literacy and understanding of terminologies

Students need to develop a strong scientific vocabulary for a variety of reasons, such as increased scientific literacy, better reading comprehension, a resulting interest in science texts, a better conceptual understanding of science, positive attitudes toward science learning, and improved performance in science learning tasks like hypothesizing and report writing, which will ultimately lead to higher science test scores (Gafoor & Dhanya, 2019). In his survey of literature reviews, (Ramos, 2015) noted that there is compelling evidence to support the use of incidental vocabulary or terminology learned through reading for in-depth comprehension.

Using 1276 students as participants, Zukswert et al.(2019) conducted a study on identifying troublesome jargon in biology: discrepancies between student performance and perceived understanding. Students were given 72 biological terminologies that were specific to their courses and asked to write down how well they understood them for this study. The purpose of this study was to identify the categories of biology jargon terms that students find the most challenging, the correspondence between students’ perceived understanding and performance-defining terms, and common mistakes in student-provided definitions. According to Zukswert et al. findings, students tended to overestimate their  understanding. The researchers also posit that students were more accurate when assessing their understanding of terms describing abstract molecular structures, ]even though these were frequently thought to be more difficult than other terms.

 Anakara (2021) conducted a study to gauge the level of biological literacy comprehension among secondary school students. 340 students were selected for the study sample, which used a descriptive methodology and a random cluster method. The researcher’s findings show that students frequently struggled to develop a proficient level of biological terminology literacy. Additionally, students showed little evidence of multidimensional literacy (skills in understanding a short biolohttps://www.prepostseo.com/imgs/textarea-placeholder.pnggical text). These results are probably due to students’ inadequate comprehension of biology prefixes and suffixes.

Functional biological literacy level: evaluated for accuracy using vocabulary related to biology, correctly defining words, and memorization of responses.  Onel and Durdukoca (2019) conducted a study to examine how ninth-grade students’ attitudes toward biology and levels of biological literacy affect their academic performance. The researchers found that students had high scores in biology literacy. However, to improve the quality of the pertinent domestic literature, the researchers also suggested conducting additional research in subsequent studies. This means that because of the difficulties with pronunciation and comprehension of prefixes and suffixes of biological terms, the sampled students in the study undoubtedly indicated that students had some difficulties in understanding, defining, and responding to questions using the appropriate terminologies.

A study was conducted in a secondary general education biology classroom to investigate the use of technology intervention aimed at assisting adolescents with Learning Disabilities (LD) in learning and enhancing their biological vocabularies. The study involved three secondary students with LD who were enrolled in a general biology course. Using index cards and iPod touch to deliver keyword and mnemonic vocabulary as treatment/intervention. The researchers proposed in their findings that all students learned the subject-related vocabularies equally well during the course of the treatment (Slemrod et al., 2022). Even though there were only a few students involved, it was clear that they were very interested in using technology to raise their level of engagement and literacy in biological vocabulary. Regardless of a student’s mother tongue or level of learning disability (LD), these results can be used as a guide to improve biological literacy and understanding of terminologies for all biology students.

Purposive sampling and extensive interviewing were used in a case study to investigate secondary school teachers’ perceptions and experiences with language issues in the biology classroom. The participants were only five teachers. The findings revealed that the majority of the time, despite having a conceptual understanding of any given subject, students are unable to articulate their understanding due to the lengthy and complex spellings of terminologies. According to interviewee IV, “Every topic has numerous and difficult terminologies. It demonstrates that students struggle to read and spell complicated terms. It is also acknowledged that spelling errors influence writing errors because the two are related. Similarly, incorrect pronunciation of complex words makes it difficult to understand a scientific topic conceptually. (Batool et al., 2021)

Teaching students how to dissect biological terms is an effective way for teachers to help students understand content-specific terms. For example, the term myocardial can be broken down into two parts: myo a prefix which means muscle, and cardial a suffix which means heart, so students can now determine the meaning of the word to be heart muscle. A wrap-up session at the end of each biology lesson is an effective strategy (Zoski et al., 2018). This approach allows the teacher to review and highlight the benefits of using the morphology of biological words as a cognitive strategy to improve students’ retention of biological vocabulary restricted to the lesson of the day, as well as encourage them to keep a journal of those vocabularies and study them regularly.

Importance of teaching Morphemes to enhance students’ understandings of biological terminologies

Students can acquired knowledge about form-function-meaning relationships in words to support vocabulary development by understanding how scientific terminology is organized using common Greek and Latin morphemes and how morphemes connect words in meaningful ways (Herrington & Horarik, 2015). Carlisle (2010) in his research found that morpheme instruction led to greater spelling and vocabulary gains in students than did morpheme instruction alone. He also showed how the use of fictitious words and scientific jargon in assessments and the post-test indicated that students were able to explain the meaning of the terms using prefixes and suffixes they had learned. In addition to specific words, students were able to learn the principles of prefixes and suffixes.

According to Bowers and Cooke (2012) the biological terms base and root words are both attested terms referring to the morpheme that conveys the primary meaning in complex words. Teachers and students can also use morphological matrices to help students learn new words. The morphological matrix is another tool for displaying the structure of morphological word families in addition to the word sum. In morphological matrices, the various prefixes and suffixes are listed that can be added to base words to create new words.

In an experiment-concepts first, jargon second, to enhance student comprehension of biological jargon. Students in a large undergraduate biology course were first exposed to concepts without new technical vocabulary (“jargon”) in a pre-class reading assignment. Their understanding of the concepts and jargon was compared to that of a comparable group of students in a different section of the same course, whose pre-class reading combined the concepts and jargons in the conventional way. According to the researchers’ findings, small instructional modifications that place emphasis on new concepts over biological jargons can help students better express their understanding of new ideas and concepts. This can be seen in how well they can explain new ideas and biological jargon (McDonnell et al., 2016).

Ukpepi and Enukoha (2012) conducted a study involving 1818 students from seventy schools to investigate the relationship between limitations in understanding scientific concepts and academic performance in primary science among sixth-grade students in Cross River State, Nigeria. The findings revealed that there is a significant relationship between pupils’ perception of scientific language and academic performance. Also, the findings further revealed a significant relationship between pupils’ pre-experience and their academic performance in primary science. It can be recommended that pupils be helped to understand the technical terms in science and be exposed to more science experiences in their environment. This will enable them to improve their academic performance in primary science.

Cervetti et al. (2015) carried out a study to look into the characteristics of scientific terminologies of students in second to fourth-grade levels’ word knowledge and word learning. A group of word attributes were discovered by the researchers, including length, part of speech, polysemy, frequency, morphological frequency, domain specificity, and concreteness. These qualities can be used to gauge students’ comprehension levels and difficulties in picking up scientific terminology. The study’s findings from the pretest (which measured word knowledge) and posttest (which measured word learning) vocabulary scores showed that three factors explained 39% of the variation in the pretest scores of third graders. At the second and fourth grades, polysemy and frequency alone explained 34% and 23% of the variance, respectively. Additionally, frequency and polysemy explained students’ vocabulary growth scores over the course of instruction at two of three grade levels (posttest controlling for the pretest).

It might be possible to select words for instruction based on rules that apply to various categories of science words as well as by being aware of word traits that are linked to difficulty in the science domain (Cervetti et al. 2015).

METHODOLOGY

A descriptive research survey design was employed to carry out this study. Data collection for a descriptive survey combined qualitative and quantitative research techniques. In accordance with Mishra and Alox (2017) the main goal of a descriptive research survey is to provide an explanation of the situation as it is presented, examined, and interpreted based on empirical data for analysis, future choices, and policy formulation. One hundred secondary school students from eleventh and twelfth grades in Kakata Educational District were chosen at random to participate in the study.

Questionnaires were used as the instruments for data collection. Questionnaires consisted of biological terminologies and their definitions. Biological terminologies were chosen from West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) biology paper one-objective questions as well as from content lessons that are/or similar in the curriculum for students in grades eleventh and twelfth. Students were given 32 biological terminologies which includes the following: exoskeleton, endoskeleton, arthropod, pseudopod, photosynthesis aerophyte, hydrophobic, ectotherm, saprophyte, epidermis, disaccharide, tetrapod, homozygous, phagocyte, chlorophyll, Parapodia, autotroph, bipedal, biosphere, bisect, chromosomes, carnivore, epiphytes, erythrocyte, exocytosis, hepatitis, homeostasis, hydrolysis, leucocytes, lymphocytes, osteocytes, and telophase. In section A of the questionnaire, students were instructed to give the meaning of each highlighted and underlined prefix and suffix from the definition of each biological terminology presented.

After a period of one months, Section B of the questionnaire was presented to students. Student were instructed to only identified and write out the prefixes and suffixes of the same biological terminologies in blank spaces provided for each biological terminology.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

One hundred secondary school pupils from grades eleven and twelve at five different schools in Margibi County’s Kakata Education District were chosen. Twenty students were chosen at random from each school included in the study’s sample. The frequency table of the study participants is shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Frequency Table of Participants

Frequency Percent
Male 48 48
Female 52 52
Total 100 100

Table 2 presents the measure of central tendency (mean, median, and mode) of the sampled participants’ ages.      

Table 2: Mean, Median, and Mode of Participants’ age in years

Mean 20.6
Median 20
Mode 19

Figure 1 presents a bar graph of the sampled participants’ ages from the eleventh and tenth grades within the study locale.

Bar-graph of participants’ Age

Figure 1: Bar-graph of participants’ Age

In Table 3, biological prefixes and suffixes are selected from biological terminologies in the methodological section. Students were instructed to write out the correct or acceptable meaning of these prefixes and suffixes. Both prefixes and suffixes were taken from the following common biological terminologies usually found on the National Exams-West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), which include: exoskeleton, endoskeleton, arthropods, pseudopods, photosynthesis aerophyte, hydrophobic, ectotherm, epidermis, disaccharide, tetrapod, homozygous, phagocyte, chlorophyll, and parapodia.

Table 3: Biological Prefixes and Suffixes of Commonly Use Biological Terminologies

Prefix No. of students who wrote the correct meaning of prefix No. of students who wrote the wrong meaning of prefix
aero- 34 (34%) 66 (66%)
arthro- 21 (21%) 79 (79%)
chloro- 34 (34%) 66 (66%)
di- 90 (90%) 10 (10%)
ecto- 17(17%) 83 (83%)
endo- 18 (18%) 82 (82%)
epi- 17(17%) 83(83%)
exo- 23 (23%) 77(77%)
homo- 66 (66%) 34 (34%)
hydro- 37 (37%) 63 (63%)
para- 23 (23%) 77 (77%)
phago- 24 (24%) 76 (76%)
photo- 98 (98%) 2 (2%)
psuedo- 17 (17%) 83 (83%)
sapro- 30 (30%) 70 (70%0
tetra- 19 (19%) 81 (81%)
Suffix No. of students who wrote the correct meaning of suffix No. of students who wrote the wrong meaning of suffix
-cyte 25 (25%) 75 (75%)
-dermis 17 (17%) 83 (83%)
-phobic 24(24%) 76 (76%)
-phyll 1 (1%) 99 (99%)
-phyte 24 (24%) 76 (76%)
-podia 28 (28%) 72 (72%)
-pods 23 (23%) 77 (77%)
-saccharides 27 (27%) 73 (73%)
-skeleton 100 (100%) 0 (0%)
-synthesis 31 (31%) 69 (69%)
-therm  25 (25%) 75 (75%)
-zygous 16 (16%) 84 (84%)

In Table 3 the prefix section—ten to twenty percent of students were able to write or give the correct or acceptable meaning of the following biological prefixes: ecto- (17%), endo- (18%), epi- (17%), psuedo- (17%), and tetra- (19%), respectively. Moreover, the number of students who wrote the wrong meaning of the following prefixes was eighty-one to eighty-three percent: ecto-(83%), endo-(82%), epi-(83%), psuedo-(83%), and tetra-(81%), respectively. Comparing the number of students who wrote the wrong and correct meanings of the prefixes (ecto-, endo-, epi-, psuedo-, and tetra-) indicates that the majority of students wrote the wrong or unacceptable meaning of the biological prefix listed above.

Moreover, twenty-one to thirty percent of students wrote the correct or acceptable meaning of the following prefixes: arthro- (21%), exo- (23%), para- (23%), phago- (24%), and sapro- (30%), respectively. The number of students who wrote the wrong meaning of the same prefixes was arthro- (79%), exo- (77%), para- (77%), phago- (76%), and sapro- (70%). From these given percentages, it can also be concluded that 20–30% of students wrote the acceptable or correct meaning of the following prefixes listed above, whereas 70–79% of the students wrote the wrong meaning of the following prefixes. This entails that students’ understandings of biological prefixes are limited.

The following biological prefixes: aero-, chloro-, and hydro-, thirty-four to thirty-seven percent of students wrote the correct or acceptable meaning of these prefixes: aero- (34%), and hydro-(37%). These percentages reveal that less than forty percent of students wrote the wrong or unacceptable meaning of these prefixes. Looking at the number of students who wrote the wrong/unacceptable meaning of the theses prefixes aero- (66%), chloro- (66%) and hydro- (63%) These percentages further indicate that the majority (more than 60%) of students do not understand these biological prefixes as well. Among the sixteen biological prefixes listed in Table 3, only the di- (90%), homo- (66%), and photo- (98%) majority of the students were able to write the correct or acceptable meaning. Regarding these prefixes di-, homo-, and photo-, only ten percent, thirty-four percent, and two percent of students wrote the wrong meaning of these prefixes, respectively. These three prefixes are the only ones for which students’ understanding was excellent.

In Table 3 of the suffix section, there are twelve suffixes. These suffixes were extracted from the biological terminologies listed in the methodological section. Out of the twelve suffixes, 1%–25% of students wrote the correct or acceptable meaning of the following suffixes: –cyte (25%), -dermis (17%), -phobic (24%), -phyll (1%), -phyte (24%), -pod (23%), -therm (25%), and -zygous (16%). The percent of students who wrote the wrong or unacceptable meaning of these suffixes were:

-cyte (75%), -dermis (83%), -phobic (76%), -phyll (99%), -phyte (76%), -pods (76%), -therm (75%), and -zygous (84%). When the percentages of students who wrote the correct and wrong meaning of these listed suffixes are compared, it can be deduced that students’ performance was not satisfactory in writing the correct or acceptable meaning of these prefixes. This result is similar to the prefixes section in Table 3.

The remaining suffixes, which include -podia (28%), -saccharides (27%), -skeleton (100%), and -synthesis (31%), include only the suffix -skeleton. One hundred percent of students wrote the correct or acceptable meaning. For the remaining three suffixes (podia, saccharides, and synthesis), less than thirty-five percent of students wrote the correct or acceptable meaning. Moreover, it can also be deduced that the suffixes -podia, -saccharides, and -synthesis, respectively, were written by seventy-two percent, seventy-three percent, and sixty-nine percent of students. In addition, it can be observed that the percentage of incorrect meanings of suffixes exceeds the correct meaning of suffixes students wrote wrongly.

Table 4: Number of Students Who Wrote the Correct and Incorrect Biological Prefixes and Suffixes

Prefix No. of students who wrote the correct prefix No. of students who wrote the wrong prefix
auto- 87 (87%) 13(13%)
bi- 75 (75%) 25 (25%)
bio- 80 (80%) 20 (20%)
chromo- 66 (66%) 34 (34%)
carni- 47 (47%) 53 (53%)
Epi 72 (72%) 28 (28%)
erythro- 28 (28%) 72 (72%)
exo- 59 (59%) 41 (41%)
hepa- 55 (55%) 45 (45%)
homeo- 41(41%) 59 (59%)
hydro- 69 (69%) 31 (31%)
leuco- 42 (42%) 58 (58%)
lympho- 27 (27%) 73 (73%)
osteo- 57 (57%) 43 (43%)
telo- 84 (84%) 16 (16%)
Suffix No. of students who wrote the correct suffix No. of students who wrote the wrong suffix
-troph 85 (85%) 14 (14%)
-pedal 72 (72%) 28 (28%)
-sphere 80 (80%) 20 (20%)
-sect 82 (82%) 18 (18%)
-somes 67 (67%) 33 (33%)
-vore 49 (49%) 51 (%1%)
-phyte 68 (68%) 32 (32%)
-cyte 36 (36%) 64 (64%)
-cytosis 55 (55%) 45 (45%)
-titis  54 (54%) 46 (46%)
-stasis 44 (44%) 56 (56%)
-lysis 68 (68%) 32 (32%)
-phase 83 (83%) 16 (16%)

In Table 4 of the prefix section, it can be deduced that students’ performance is satisfactory. These percentages further indicate that students who wrote the correct or acceptable prefixes from the biological terminologies presented in Section B of the questionnaire are higher than students who wrote the wrong or unacceptable answers. Additionally, 40%–87% of students wrote the correct prefixes, and less than thirty percent (27%–28%) were able to write the correct prefixes of lympho-(27%) and erythro- (28%). These two prefixes, lympho- and erythro-, were the only prefixes 72%–73% of students wrote the wrong or unacceptable meaning of. This is followed by the prefixes carni- and homeo-, which were written wrongly by 53% and 59% of students, respectively. The overall performance of students who wrote the correct biological prefixes is much higher than that of students who wrote the wrong biological prefixes.

In the suffix section in Table 4, 54% – 85% of students wrote the correct/acceptable biological suffixes presented in Section B of the questionnaire. These percentages indicate that majority of the students performed well. Moreover, the following suffixes, stasis- and vore-, were written correctly by 44% and 49% of students respectively which can be considered satisfactory or nearly a half of the sampled students. Only the suffix cyte- was the least correctly written by 36% of students and written wrongly by 64% of the sampled students (representing more than half of the sample who wrote this suffix wrongly). Looking at the overall performances of students who wrote the correct/acceptable suffixes and the wrong suffixes in Table 4 of the suffix section, students who wrote the correct/acceptable suffix performed far better than students who wrote the wrong suffixes.

SUMMARY

Based on the study’s findings regarding students’ understandings of common biological prefixes and suffixes, which are outlined in Table 3, it can be concluded from Table 3, which deals with students writing the correct or acceptable meaning of biological prefixes and suffixes. The data in Table 3 for both the prefix and the suffix sections entail that students have a huge challenge in writing the correct or acceptable (understanding biological prefixes and suffixes) meaning of biological prefixes and suffixes, which is a paramount skill needed for understanding any biological terminology as well as for students who opt to follow a career path to study science or any branch of biological science. Furthermore, majority of the students ranging from 63% -99% based on Table 3 prefix and suffix sections, wrote the wrong meaning of biological prefixes and suffixes, while majority of the students who wrote the correct/acceptable meaning for both the prefix and the suffix sections were below thirty-eight percent. The results in Table 4, which are based on students writing the correct prefixes and suffixes of biological terminologies, showed that students performed much better (the majority of student) in writing both the correct/acceptable biological prefixes and suffixes.

CONCLUSION

For secondary school students, comprehending biological prefixes and suffixes is a significant challenge. This difficulty extends to students who struggle to translate important biological terms into prefixes and suffixes so that they can more easily understand important biological terms in written texts and on examinations. Additionally, based on the generalization of the data in Table 4, which includes both the prefix and the suffix section, it was not a major challenge for most students to identify and write the prefix and suffix of biological terminologies.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the findings of the study the following recommendations were made:

  1. Biology teachers design a teaching strategies-specifically developing biological morpheme that would enhance students’ understandings of biological terminologies by decoding biology terminologies in to prefixes and suffixes to enhance students’ understandings of those biological prefixes and suffixes to be decoded.
  2. Biology teacher to develop a routine practice to enhance student’s ability in forming plural and singular forms of biological terminologies as well as helping students read aloud to become familiar and fluent in pronouncing biological terminologies.

REFERENCES

  1. Anakara, H. R. S. (2021). Assessment of biological literacy levels among third-grade secondary school students in Medina. International Education Studies, 14(7), 47. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v14n7p47
  2. Bowers, P., & Cooke, G. (2012). Morphology and the common core: Building students’ undersatnding of the written word. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 38(4), 31–35. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/morphology-common-core-building-students/docview/1439532956/se-2
  3. Carlisle, J. F. (2010). Improving literacy by teaching morphemes. Reading and Writing, 23(2), 257–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-008-9151-9
  4. Cervetti, G. N., Hiebert, E. H., Pearson, P. D., & McClung, N. A. (2015). Factors that influence the difficulty of science words. Journal of Literacy Research, 47(2), 153–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X15615363
  5. Fang, Z. (2005). Scientific literacy: A systemic functional linguistics perspective. Science Education, 89(2), 335–347. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.20050
  6. Gafoor, A., & Dhanya, T. K. (2019). Attainment of biological vocabulary among secondary school students attainment of biological vocabulary among secondary school students. Classroom Digest, 7(12). 2395 -1745
  7. Herrington, M., & Horarik, M. (2015). Linguistically informed teaching of spelling: Toward a relational approach. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 38(2), 61–71. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281377934%0ALinguistically
  8. McAllister, N., Tavener-Smith, T., & Williams, J. (2022). Roots, prefixes, and suffixes: decoding medical terminology using an online enquiry-based learning intervention for nursing associates. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 17(3), 256–262. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2022.01.005
  9. McComas, W., Reiss, M., & Dempster, E. (2018). Considering grand challenges in biology education: Rationales and proposals for future investigations to guide instruction and enhance student understanding in the life sciences. The American Biology Teacher, 80(7), 483–492. https://doi.org/ 10.1525/ abt.201 8.80.7.483
  10. McDonnell, L., Barker, M. K., & Wieman, C. (2016). Concepts first, jargon second improves student articulation of understanding. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 44(1), 12–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.20922
  11. Mishra, S., & Alox, S. (2017). Handbook of research methodology. Educreation Publishing.
  12. Onel, A., & Durdukoca, S. (2019). Identifying the predictive power of biological literacy and attitudes toward biology in academic achievement in high school students. International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.15345/iojes.2019.02.014
  13. Ramos, F. (2015). Incidental vocabulary learning in second language acquisition: A literature review. Profile Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development, 17(1), 157–166. https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v17n1.43957
  14. Rasinski, T., Padak, N., Newton, J., & Newton, E. (2011). The Latin-Greek connection: Building vocabulary through morphological study. Reading Teacher, 65(2), 133–141. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01015
  15. Seah, L. (2016). Understanding the conceptual and language challenges encountered by grade four students when writing scientific explanations. Research in Science Education, 46(32), 413–437. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-015-9464-z
  16. Slemrod, T., Howorth, S., Wood, L., Lemmi, C., Hart, S., Cheney, D., & West, E. (2022). A momparison of science vocabulary acquisition using keyword mnemonics via a comparison of science vocabulary acquisition using keyword mnemonics via technology and flash cards. Journal of Special Education Technology, 0(0), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/01626434221100729
  17. Ukpepi, B., & Enukoha, O. (2012). Limitations to understanding scientific concepts and academic performance in primary science among primary six pupils in Cross River State Nigeria. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE), 2(2), 85–92. https://doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v2i1.1716
  18. Zoski, J. L., Nellenbach, K. M., & Erickson, K. A. (2018). Using morphological strategies to help adolescents decode, spell, and comprehend big words in science. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 40(1), 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525740117752636
  19. Zukswert, J. M., Barker, M. K., & McDonnell, L. (2019). Identifying troublesome jargon in biology: Discrepancies between student performance and perceived understanding. CBE Life Sciences Education, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-07-0118

Article Statistics

Track views and downloads to measure the impact and reach of your article.

0

PDF Downloads

5 views

Metrics

PlumX

Altmetrics

Paper Submission Deadline

Track Your Paper

Enter the following details to get the information about your paper

GET OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER