STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN PREGNANCY

Research into students' concepts about the human body has focused on several organ systems, but the reproductive system has been largely overlooked. The few studies that addressed children's concepts of birth were conducted mainly among kindergarten or primary school children. However, no study has yet attempted to examine how adolescent students perceive human pregnancy. We administered a Human Pregnancy Understanding Questionnaire (HPUQ) consisting of 50 Likert-type items to 300 university students in Slovakia. We found several misunderstandings of human fertilization, fetus respiration, and organ development. Moreover, several misconceptions found in Slovakian primary school children in the previous research still persist in adult students. Analysis of covariance shows that students' HPUQ scores were significantly affected by gender whereas females have better scores than males. The effect of high school type attendance (with/without human biology course) did show only weak effect on students' HPUQ score.