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Because computing has been considered to be one of the survival skills of the knowledge age (Trilling & Hood, 1999), many recent educational reform initiatives in developing countries include a computer literacy stage for students and teachers and, later, an information and communication technology diffusion stage to improve access to education, increase the quality of education, and implement educational reform (Arias & Clark, 2004; Perraton, 2000). In 1998, the Turkish Ministry of National Education (MNE) received a loan from the World Bank for the Basic Education Program, which is one of the key elements of the centralized comprehensive national education reform. The primary aims of the Basic Education Program are to expand the scope of basic education and to improve the quality of education. To achieve the latter, the MNE set additional aims, such as that to ensure that each student and teacher become computer literate, to integrate information technologies into school curriculum, and to establish information technology classrooms and computer laboratories in schools (Ministry of National Education, 2004b). At the same time, the MNE revised the curricula of several compulsory courses and designed some new elective courses to contribute to the improvement of the quality of education. In this context, computer as an elective subject was added to the elementary school curriculum in 1998 as 1 or 2 hours per week for Grades 4-8 and was later added to the academic high school curriculum in 2000 for Grades 9-10. The primary aim of this subject is to increase the number of computer-literate students (Ministry of National Education, 1998, 2000). Parallel to these initiatives, the Higher Education Council made some arrangements to the teacher education system in 1998, including the nationwide reorganization of the Faculties of Education and the establishment of a new teacher training program, called Computer and Instructional Technologies Education, to train computer teachers. In 2005, the MNE revised the elementary school curriculum to allow students to take computer subjects as electives from the first to the eighth grade. However, total teaching time is restricted to 1 hour per week. In addition, be-370

ABSTRACT:The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of two conceptual change strategies; refutational text and predict-observe-explain, to determine if either one is more effective with individual learners or groups of learners. Seventy-three juniors were assigned to group or individual conditions and to one of two experimental treatments. Students studied web materials which were designed to overcome their misconceptions about the nature of matter. Pre-tests and post-tests concerning conceptual change, cognitive conflict and attitudes towards chemistry were administered. Longterm retention of students' conceptual change was also evaluated with a third, nine weeks delayed post-test. Students studying refutational text material and working in groups achieved better results on conceptual change and cognitive conflict. Results also showed that students studying refutational text material had more positive attitudes towards chemistry than students studying predict-observe-explain