Fourteen-Year-Old Students' Misconceptions Regarding the Sub-Micro and Symbolic Levels of Specific Chemical Concepts

Abstract

Learning and presenting chemical concepts at the triple level of chemical concepts provides opportunities for the development of misconceptions. The research aimed to identify potential misconceptions of chemical concepts: the states of matter, a pure substance, a mixture, an element, a compound, a physical change, and a chemical reaction at the sub-micro level when solving problems incorporating sub-microrepresentations. A total of 188 14-year old students, attending six different primary schools, participated in the research. A chemistry achievement test comprising five problems at the macroscopic, sub-micro, and symbolic levels was used to obtain data about students' misconceptions of selected concepts. The results showed that the majority of students had formed inadequate mental models (misconceptions) for the chemical concept of the liquid state of water (66.5%). The lowest level of misconceptions is related with the gaseous state of matter, because almost all students (98.5%) solved the problem correctly. It can be concluded that the results of the research are significant for chemistry teachers because they can: select and apply adequate educational strategies to avoid the deepening or development of misconceptions and make the courses practically oriented by analysing students’ misconceptions and develop teaching strategies to minimise these problems in the chemistry classroom. Keywords: chemical concepts, primary school, misconceptions, sub-micro level, symbolic level.

Profile Conceptual Understanding of Secondary School Students Associated With Conceptual Change Regarding Material Changes

“…Most students have a theoretical model regarding melting, evaporation, and condensation, while almost half the students (18 or 45%) only have an inappropriate model regarding deposition. These results proved earlier findings that students still have difficulties in understanding melting, evaporation, condensation, and deposition (Gopal et al, 2004;Thompson and Logue, 2006;Adadan et al, 2009;Durmuş and Bayraktar, 2010;Treagust et al, 2010;Alwan, 2011;Smith and Nakhleh, 2011;Tatar, 2011;Aydeniz and Kotowski, 2012;Tsitsipis et al, 2012;Kirbulut and Geban, 2014;Gultepe, 2016;Slapničar et al, 2018).…”

“…Studies found that water droplets formation on a room temperature-water bottle (Gopal, Kleinsmidt, Case, and Musonge, 2004), the presence of bubbles in boiling water (Alwan, 2011;Aydeniz and Kotowski, 2012;Gultepe, 2016), the mechanism of rain (Thompson and Logue, 2006;Michail, Stamou, and Stamou, 2007) or the difference between melting and dissolving (Durmuş and Bayraktar, 2010;Smith and Nakhleh, 2011) were commonly misunderstood. Other studies also proved that misconceptions about the state of matter were widespread across the educational level, from junior high school students (Tsitsipis, Stamovlasis, and Papageorgiou, 2012;Slapničar, Tompa, Glažar, and Devetak, 2018), senior high school students (Adadan, Irving, and Trundle, 2009;Treagust et al, 2010;Kirbulut and Geban, 2014) to preservice teachers (Tatar, 2011). Liu and Lesniak (2005) study evaluated elementary to senior high school students' understanding of mat-ter, and they found that students faced difficulties in understanding the state of matter changes, such as physical and chemical properties changes.…”

Investigation of pre-service science teacher's understandings about chemical representations

“…Kimyasal gösterimler arasındaki ilişkiyi kurmanın kimyayı öğrenmede ne derece etkili olduğunu gösteren birçok çalışma gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bu çalışmalarda öğrencilerin kimyasal kavramların hemen hepsine ilişkin alt-mikroskobik (tanecikli) seviyede ve kimyasal reaksiyonlara ilişkin sembolik seviyede kavram yanılgılarına sahip oldukları [12,13], sembolik [14] ve alt-mikroskobik düzeyde kavramları açıklamada zorlandıkları belirlenmiştir [15]. Aynı zamanda öğrencilerin gösterimlerde, birden fazla belirlemede zorlandıkları [3], kimyasal gösterimler arasında uygun bağlantılar kuramadıkları [14], sembolik ve alt-mikroskobik düzeyde gösterimleri açıklarken makroskobik seviyeye yönelik açıklama yaptıkları [16] tespit edilmiştir.…”

Chemical Education Research in Slovenia after 1991: A Systematic Review

“…Lower and secondary school education chemistry concept development was discussed in three papers. Slapničar, Tompa, Glažar and Devetak (2018) aimed to identify potential misconceptions of chemical concepts: the states of matter, a pure substance, a mixture, an element, a compound, a physical change, and a chemical reaction at the submicro level when solving problems incorporating submicrorepresentations. The results showed that the majority of students had formed inadequate mental models (misconceptions) for the chemical concept of the liquid state of water (66.5%).…”