The research reported in this study was designed to answer three questions: (a) What misconceptions do eighth grade students have concerning the chemistry concepts from their textbooks. (b) How is reasoning ability related to misconceptions concerning chemistry concepts. (c) How effective are textbooks in teaching an understanding of chemistry concepts? Five chemistry concepts were used in the study: chemical change, dissolution, conservation of atoms, periodicity, and phase change. Problems concerning the five concepts were given to 247 eighth‐grade students in order to assess the students' degree of understanding of chemistry concepts and to identify specific misconceptions. Two pencil‐and‐paper Piaget‐type tasks were used to assess intellectual level. A comparison of intellectual level and scores on the chemistry concepts showed moderate correlations. However, the small number of formal operational students in the sample makes these results inconclusive. A study of the level of understanding of the five chemistry concepts and the nature of the misconceptions held by students indicate a general failure of textbooks to teach a reasonable understanding of chemistry concepts.

IntroductionAccording to the Piagetian model, formal thought begins to develop at age 11 or 12 and reaches an equilibrium state at around age 15 or 16. This model states that concreteoperational persons are unable to develop understanding of abstract concepts, i.e., concepts which require the building of theories and departures from concrete reality (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958. pp. 339-342). Also, it is implied that formal-operational persons are able to develop understanding of both concrete and abstract concepts. If this is the case, then the present emphasis on basic unifying abstract themes and concepts in the new secondary school science programs is probably appropriate in that the majority of students enrolled in these classes would be formal thinkers. A good deal of recent research, however, indicates that, to the contrary, perhaps from 40 to 75 percent of secondary school students have failed to reach the level of formal thought (Karplus ).If the Piagetian model is correct in contending that concrete thinkers cannot develop understanding of abstract subject matter and if, indeed, a large portion of secondary school students are concrete operational, then a major portion of today's secondary school science curricula which the foundation-sponsored projects have developed is beyond the student's level of understanding and, therefore, inappropriate. The conclusion Kohlberg and Gilligan (1971) came to when they stated, "Clearly these new curricula assumed formal operational thought rather than attempting to develop it," certainly deserves careful analysis. Problem StatementThe primary objective of this analysis was to assess understanding of concrete-and formal-operational concepts by concrete and formal operational students in secondary school biology, chemistry, and physics classes.

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The assumption is often made by college professors that incoming freshman students think logically. Using tests designed by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget to evaluate logical thought processes, the authors found that 66 of 131 freshmen exhibited characteristics of the concrete operational thinker, while another 32 did not meet the criteria for formal operations. Professors further compound the problem by failing to recognize the kinds of experiences incoming freshmen students must have to move toward more logical thought. McKinnon, using a newly developed inquiry-oriented science course based upon Piagetian criteria, found a highly significant difference between those students who were exposed to the course and like students who were not. The authors concluded that secondary and elementary teachers do not take advantage of inquiry-oriented techniques so necessary to the development of logical thought because college professors do not provide examples of inquiry-oriented teaching.

The sequence of the three phases of two high school learning cycles in chemistry was altered in order to: (I ) give insights into the factors which account for the success of the learning cycle, (2) serve as an indirect test of the association between Piaget's theory and the learning cycle, and (3) to compare the learning cycle with traditional instruction. Each of the six sequences (one n o d and five altered) was studied with content and atritudc measures. The outcomes of the study supported the contention that the normal learning cycle sequence is the optimum sequence for achievement of content knowledge.