The central goal of this study was to examine the extent to which a teaching approach focused on the interaction between macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic levels of chemistry representations could affect high school students' performance in the field of inorganic reactions, as well as to examine how the applied instruction influences students' assessment of invested mental effort. The total sample of this research included 313 high school students. The survey was conducted during the 2012−2013 school year. As a measuring instrument for student performance, a two-tier multiple-choice test of knowledge was used. Each task in the test was followed by a seven-point Likert-type scale for evaluation of invested mental effort. Our findings indicate that a teaching strategy relying on the interplay between three levels of knowledge representation leads to an increase in students' performance and also contributes to the reduction of cognitive load. The obtained results for calculated mental efficiency suggest that the applied instructional model represents an effective teaching model.

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This study describes the development and application of a three-tier test as a valid and reliable tool in diagnosing students’ misconceptions regarding some basic concepts about carbohydrates. The test was administrated to students of the Pharmacy Department at the University of Bijeljina (Serb Republic). The results denoted construct and content validity of the instrument and its high reliability. Considering the results entirely, it was determined that the presence of a third tier in a task significantly affected the number of identified misconceptions and the assessment of scientific knowledge. These findings suggest that certain incorrect responses should be attributed to the lack of knowledge rather than to misconceptions, and likewise, some correct responses should be attributed to the lucky guess rather than to scientific knowledge, which implies a higher credibility of the results obtained. In this study, several misconceptions about carbohydrates were revealed. As there are only a few studies examining students’ misconceptions in chemistry using three-tier tests available in literature, future research should focus on the further implementation of three-tier tests as a powerful tool for simple detection of misconceptions.

The aim of this study was the creation of a procedure for determining the cognitive complexity of stoichiometric tasks and its validation. The created procedure included an assessment of the difficulty of concepts and skills, and an assessment of the concepts' interactivity. There were 82 students who participated in the study, with an educational profile of a pharmaceutical technician. As a research instrument for assessing performance, test of knowledge was used. Each task in the test was followed by a seven-point Likert scale for the evaluation of invested mental effort. The validity of this instrument for the assessment of cognitive complexity was confirmed by a series of linear regression analysis where extremely high values of correlation coefficients are obtained among the examined variables: student's performance and invested mental effort (dependent variables) and cognitive complexity (independent variable).Key words: mental effort; performance; problem-solving; stoichiometry РАЗВОЈ НА ПОСТАПКА ЗА ПРОЦЕНА НА КОГНИТИВНА СЛОЖЕНОСТ НА СТЕХИОМЕТРИСКИТЕ ЗАДАЧИЦелта на ова испитување е создавање на постапка за определување на когнитивната сложеност на стехиометриските задачи и нејзина валидација. Разработената постапка вклучува процена на тежината на концептите и вештините и процена на интерактивност на концептите. Во испитувањето беа вклучени 82 студенти со образовен профил фармацевтски техничар. Како истражувачки инструмент за процена на перформансите беше употребен тест на знаење. Секоја задача во тестот беше следена на скалата на Likert од седум точки за евалуација на вложениот ментален труд. Валидноста на овој инструмент за процена на когнитивната сложеност беше потврдена со серија анализи со линеарна регресија со кои беа добиени многу високи вредности на коефициентот на корелација меѓу испитуваните променливи: перформансите на студентите и вложениот ментален труд (зависно променливи) и когнитивна сложеност (независно променлива).Клучни зборови: ментален труд; перформанси; решавање на проблеми; стехиометрија

This paper presents a research directed to examine the relation between students' metacognitive awareness and physics learning efficiency. Questionnaire of metacognitive awareness and physics knowledge test were applied on the sample of 746 subjects of both sexes, first graders of Grammar Schools in Novi Sad, Republic of Serbia. Obtained results were treated statistically. Results analysis shows that 15 years old girls have higher level of metacognitive awareness than 15 years old boys. It is shown that achievement in physics is not dependent on gender.The results indicate significant moderate correlation between metacognitive skills and student achievement in physics (r = 0.48473, p < 0.001). Important insights about metacognitive awareness and efficiency in physics learning have been generated. Our study has highlighted the benefits of developing metacognitive awareness to achieve better results in physics teaching-learning process.

The organization of educational objectives plays an important role in curriculum development process, since it enables the sequencing of educational experiences. The main goal of this paper is to propose a framework for the formal representation of educational objectives, which enables the evaluation of organization of educational objectives. The model is based on domain ontology, Bloom’s taxonomy and objectives organization in the competence-based knowledge space. The model is verified on the case study that evaluates the students‘ achievements in Chemistry field Solutions by conducting an informal knowledge test on the group of 199 14-year-old students of primary schools in the Republic of Serbia. The results obtained from the case study clearly indicate the necessity for including assessment of students‘ achievements in the organization of educational objectives. The proposed model enables evaluation of organization of educational objectives which could be further used for an iterative refinement of the organization of educational objectives

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Many studies dedicated to the teaching and learning of organic chemistry courses have emphasized that high school students have shown significant difficulties in mastering the concepts of this discipline. Therefore, the aim of our study was to help students to overcome these difficulties by applying systemic synthesis questions, [SSynQs], as the instructional method in our intervention. This work shows that students from the group exposed to the new teaching method achieved higher scores on final testing than students from the control group, who were taught by the traditional method, when students' achievements in conventional, linear questions [LQs] and in [SSynQs] were studied. These results were followed by observation of lower levels of mental effort by students from the intervention group, and higher levels of mental effort in the control group, invested during solving both types of questions. This correlation between achievement and mental effort resulted in high instructional efficiency for the applied method in the intervention group, [SSynQs], and low instructional efficiency for the traditional teaching and learning method applied in the control group. A systemic triangular relation between achievement, mental effort, and instructional efficiency, established by each group and gender, emphasized that the application of [SSynQs] was more suited to female students than for male students because of [SSynQs] characteristics as teaching and learning tools and because of learning style and ability differences between genders.