The research mapped chemistry-oriented university freshman students’ ability to solve chemical calculations. Their success was monitored based on several factors such as their faculty, field of studies, the type of calculation and the assignment type (word problem vs. formula). The results indicate a significant need to change the approach to teaching chemical calculations - the students were rather unsuccessful in the tasks. The obstacles they face include the ability to identify a problem, understand the concepts of calculation and appropriately adjust the correct use of the mathematical apparatus. These findings represent an impulse for teaching in upper-secondary school as well as to introductory university courses.

This paper deals with the analysis of the failure of students in bachelor’s programs Chemistry in Education at Faculty of Education (FPE) University of West Bohemia (UWB) in the initial period of study. Many students of this programs had difficulties with passing the exams in the 1st year of study. These troubles could be partially caused by different level of high schools Chemistry teaching, students transition to university with another teaching style and higher demands on additional self-studying. The crucial compulsory courses in winter semester of the 1st year study programs are Chemical Calculations, General Chemistry and in summer semester it is Inorganic Chemistry. This article analyzes selected tasks of mentioned courses credit tests and exams. These assignments are focused mainly on the issues of chemical nomenclature, chemical equation solutions and basic chemical calculation exercises. Students failure is discussed based on the data coming from summary tables. The benefits of remedial courses there are also evaluated, these courses were prepared and implemented within the framework ESF project aiming to help students successfully complete the initial period of their studies.

Formal science education is the last stage of acquiring scientific knowledge for most people. They rely on the knowledge acquired at school for the rest of their lives. Therefore, it is important that formal education changes students' colloquial knowledge into scientific knowledge and is correct. The study decided to test three situations. In the first one, it was examined whether formal education actually displaces colloquial knowledge of students. In the second, the level of knowledge acquired at school was compared with the level of extracurricular knowledge. The third examined the durability of knowledge acquired at school, i.e. can school knowledge be changed, e.g. through advertising or popular science publications? The main hypothesis of the research was the assumption that school knowledge eliminates erroneous, clichéd beliefs and is permanent over time. The study tested chemical knowledge related to cooking. 472 people participated in the study and an online questionnaire was used. The research built on previous research on the correlation between scientific knowledge and non-scientific beliefs and pedagogical theories on knowledge transfer. The obtained results did not confirm the main hypothesis. Formal school education turned out to be less effective than non-formal education. It seems, therefore, that school education should not focus on facts that students forget and that change during their informal (lifelong) education. Rather, it should focus on the ability to independently construct knowledge. Keywords: common knowledge, lifelong learning, pedagogical theories, science education