A Cross-Age Study of Different Perspectives in Solution Chemistry from Junior to Senior High School

Abstract

This study reports on research examining what students think about aspects of solution chemistry and seeks to establish what alternative conceptions they hold in this area. To achieve this aim the researchers developed a test comprising of openended questions that evaluated students understanding of solution chemistry. The test was administered to 441 students selected randomly from different grades, grade 7 through grade 10. The research findings suggest that students have difficulty at comprehending the investigated concepts in solution chemistry. Alternative conceptions about the concepts of dissolution, chemical bonding, evaporation and condensation influence latter learning. Interestingly, the grade 9 students have the least percentages, except for Item 3, amongst grades in terms of alternative conception. Also, students' alternative conceptions are also stored in long-term memory and interact with each another. In the light of the findings, it can be suggested that the future research may need to focus on classifying of students' responses in terms of categories in understanding such as propositions, strings, images, episode, intellectual skills and cognitive strategies.

A Cross-age study of students' understanding of fractals

“…The use of these classification criteria for student responses provides an opportunity to compare studentsú nderstanding to researchers (ÇALIK, 2005). Some researchers (e.g.…”

“…Some researchers (e.g. ÇALIK, 2005;et al, 2011) used similar categories for examining students' understandings. Differences among group test scores were investigated by traditional statistical means using parametric tests: one-way ANOVA and Tukey.…”

“…The schooling system in Turkey consists of three main components: basic education (elementary schools, age 6-14; 8 years), which is compulsory; secondary education (lycees or senior high schools, age 14-17; 4 years), and higher education (colleges and universities) (ÇALIK, 2005). All schools throughout the country must use the same curricula, which is prepared and implemented by the National Ministry of Education (MEB) (TURKEY, 2005).…”

“…The first part of the questions consists of multiple choices and the other part of the questions requires students to explain their reason why they selected this choice. These kinds of two-tier questions are useful because they identify alternative conceptions along with the underlying reasons (ÇALIK, 2005). The test contains four main categories.…”

Enhancing Pre-service Elementary Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of Solution Chemistry with Conceptual Change Text

“…Research reveals that learners struggle to understand the concept of dissolution (Abraham, Gryzybowski, Renner & Marek, 1992;Abraham, Williamson & Westbrook, 1994;Cosgrove & Osborne, 1981;Ç alık & Ayas, 2005a;Ebenezer & Erickson, 1996;Longden, Black & Solomon, 1991;Smith & Metz, 1996), the nature of solutions (Fensham & Fensham, 1987;Prieto, Blanco & Rodriguez, 1989), solubility (Ebenezer & Erickson, 1996;Gennaro, 1981), energy changes during the solution processes (Ebenezer & Fraser, 2001;Liu, Ebenezer & Fraser, 2002), the effects of temperature and stirring on the dissolution of solids (Blanco & Prieto, 1997), the conservation of mass during dissolution (Dríver & Russell, 1982;Holding, 1987;Piaget & Inhelder, 1974), structural characteristics of solution chemistry , types of solutions Y unsaturated, saturated and supersaturated (Ç alık & Ayas, 2005b;Pınarbaşı & Canpolat, 2003), vapour pressure lowering and the relationship between vapour pressure and boiling point (Ç alık & Ayas, 2005b;Pınarbaşı & Canpolat, 2003), solutions and their components (Ç alık & Ayas, 2005c), and solubility of a gas in water (Pınarbaşı & Canpolat, 2003).…”