Charakteristika von Repräsentationen im Biologieunterricht aus Sicht von Schülerinnen und Schülern der Sekundarstufe II

External Representations are particularly important for biology teaching in school. In this context, numerous findings exist regarding student’s competences in dealing with biological texts, pictures and multiple external representations (MER). Characteristic of representations haven’t been classified domain specific but on a theoretical, cognitive psychological level. In this article such a classification is used to analyse the learner perspective on representations in biology class in a structured way. To this end, five guided interviews were conducted with students from secondary school. The interviews were analysed employing qualitative content analysis. Among other things the results show that from the learner perspective the objective, scientific nature of biological texts and pictures is characteristic. Regarding MER it can be noted that representations of processes and procedures in pictures and texts are perceived as typical for biology class. The description of subject-related dealing with representations permits guidance for optimizing teaching and learning.