Functional Groups Detection: Do Chemistry Teachers Demonstrate Conceptual Difficulties in Teaching?

2022

PEDAGOGICAL RES

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Organic qualitative analysis is one of the challenging chemical concepts in students learning of chemistry. The West African Examinations Council chemistry chief examiners for years, have lamented on students' poor performance in organic qualitative analysis at the senior high school level. This study, therefore, investigated chemistry students' conceptual understanding of organic qualitative analysis. Convergent mixed methods procedure was used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from 263 chemistry students. The 263 students were selected through multistage sampling technique to respond to organic qualitative analysis diagnostic test for students. Quantitative data was analyzed using percentages, means, and standard deviations to determine students' level of conceptual understanding on organic qualitative analysis. The results from the study showed that, students demonstrated no scientific understanding on organic qualitative analysis. The qualitative data was open-coded and constantly compared to establish students' conceptual difficulties on organic qualitative analysis. Students demonstrated conceptual difficulties were in the form of alternative conceptions and factual difficulties. It was, therefore, recommended that chemistry teachers should select and use appropriate conceptual change instruction approaches in their teaching to help students conceptualize organic qualitative analysis contents in organic chemistry.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemistry students’ conceptual understanding of organic qualitative analysis

Anim-Eduful

2022

PEDAGOGICAL RES

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“…This attitude of teachers practicing something different from what they profess to do could be that teachers just have theoretical knowledge (Anim-Eduful & Adu-Gyamfi, 2021) about teaching and learning resources and their importance and how best to use them in instruction but are unable to practice it effectively. On the other hand, it could partly be due to teachers lack of content knowledge (Anim-Eduful & Adu-Gyamfi, 2021) in the OQA concepts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Identification and characterisation of the structures of unknown substances are important parts of organic chemistry (Anim-Eduful & Adu-Gyamfi, 2021). For example, in drug analyses, chemists frequently use qualitative patterns of reactivity to identify the functional groups of unknown compounds.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Influencing High School Chemistry Teachers’ and Students’ Teaching and Learning of Organic Qualitative Analysis: A Qualitative Study

Anim-Eduful

2022

EJES

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Identification and characterisation of the structures of unknown substances are important parts of learning organic chemistry. This paper reports on a study that investigated factors that influence the teaching and learning of organic qualitative analysis in organic chemistry. In all, three teachers and nine students from three different categories of schools participated in the study. Interview guides and an observation checklist were developed and used to obtain qualitative data. The qualitative data gathered from the interview were transcribed by reducing them to patterns and themes and analysed thematically. The study revealed, among others, that teaching and learning resources, practical-based instruction and the nature of the chemistry curriculum were the factors that impede chemistry teachers’ and students’ teaching and learning of organic qualitative analysis in organic chemistry. Article visualizations:<img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0945/a.php" alt="Hit counter" />

“…That is, teachers are unable to conceptualize the unique reactions of certain families of organic compounds with respect to their functional group. For instance, substitution reactions are ideal for alkanes and benzenes, but not addition reactions, which are ideal for saturated hydrocarbons (Anim-Eduful & Adu-Gyamfi, 2021). This implies teachers have problems with their content knowledge in organic chemistry.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teachers’ Conceptual Difficulties in Teaching Senior High School Organic Chemistry

Contemporary Mathematics and Science Education

Asaki

2022

Self Cite

Teachers are one of the important factors influencing students' learning of chemistry as they (teachers) transform the content for students. When teachers do not have a sound scientific understanding of the chemistry behind the organic concepts considered to be difficult, they are likely, not able to transform sound scientific understanding for their students. Hence, the need to examine the conceptual difficulties of teachers in teaching organic chemistry to senior high school students. Teachers, teaching chemistry in 31 schools were sampled through multi-stage sampling procedures and responded to a diagnostic test on organic chemistry. The data from the test were manipulated using quantitative and qualitative methods, such as means, standard deviations, percentages, and themes. The quantitative results were merged with the qualitative results to examine teachers' conceptual difficulties in organic chemistry. The findings showed that teachers have conceptual difficulties with organic chemistry. This study has added to the literature that teacher conceptual difficulties were partial understanding with misconceptions such as preconceived notions, factual misconceptions, and conceptual misunderstandings. Therefore, in order to deal with those misconceptions, chemistry educators should implement instructional approaches that will help preservice teachers challenge and deal with their misconceptions in organic chemistry.