Conceptual difficulties experienced by senior high school students of electrochemistry: Electric circuits and oxidation‐reduction equations

Garnett, Pamela J.; Treagust, David F.

doi:10.1002/tea.3660290204

Cited by 169 publications

(154 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

127

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In the meantime, the ninth-grade students scored lowest on the items related to concepts in electricity, a finding which corresponds to the many studies that reveal that electricity concepts are difficult for children to learn, especially the concepts of circuit, current, and electrical energy (Shipstone, 1988;Garnett & Treagust, 1992;Furio & Guisasola, 1998). We discovered two common misconceptions regarding electricity in our study, which have also been revealed by many researchers (Magnusson, Boyle & Templin, 1997;Osborne, 1983;Russell, 1980;Shipstone, 1984): Students thought that the bulb in a series nearest the positive electrode would light first (Appendix, item 18), and that two bulbs together use more electricity than a single bulb (Appendix, item 17).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 57%

The Development of Authentic Assessments to Investigate Ninth Graders’ Scientific Literacy: In the Case of Scientific Cognition Concerning the Concepts of Chemistry and Physics

Chang

Chiu

2005

Int J Sci Math Educ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Scientific literacy and authenticity have gained a lot of attention in the past few decades worldwide. The goal of the study was to develop various authentic assessments to investigate students' scientific literacy for corresponding to the new curriculum reform of Taiwan in 1997. In the process, whether ninth graders were able to apply school knowledge in real-life problems was also investigated. Over the course of our two-year study, we developed authentic assessments to investigate a stratified random sampling of 1,503 ninth graders' levels of scientific literacy, including scientific cognition, process skills, application of science, habits of mind, nature of science, and attitude towards science. The purpose of this article is to discuss three different formats of authentic assessments: multiple-choice, open-ended, and hands-on test items, which we developed to investigate scientific cognition. To validate the three formats of authentic assessments, students' performance on these three assessments were compared with the science section of Taiwan's Academic Attainment Testing (STAAT), and the values of Pearson correlation coefficient were all at the significant level, ranging from 0.205 to 0.660 (p < 0.01). We found that our three authentic assessments were better in evaluating students' authentic abilities in science than standardized tests (such as STAAT). Further authentic assessments, particularly the hands-on activity, benefited low-achieving students. Concerning the common themes tested in the authentic assessments, students performed better in a multiple-choice test than an open-ended test on electricity and heat and temperature. In addition, two themes of chemical reactions and reactions of acid and base with indicators were performed best in a hands-on test than in the other two tests. In this article, we provide evidence that authentic assessments could be developed in different formats to investigate students' scientific cognition as part of the national test. Of these formats, the multiple-choice, open-ended, and hands-on test items are all shown to be sensitive in their evaluation of students' cognition in science.KEY WORDS: scientific literacy, scientific cognition and authentic assessmentIn this new century, many countries not only focus on research in science and technology, but also dedicate time and resources to the improvement of science education. In fact, education reform has become a continuous movement in many countries (Bell, Abd-El-Khalick, Lederman, McComas

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 57%

The Development of Authentic Assessments to Investigate Ninth Graders’ Scientific Literacy: In the Case of Scientific Cognition Concerning the Concepts of Chemistry and Physics

Chang

Chiu

2005

Int J Sci Math Educ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, many students find the diverse models that are used to explain science challenging and confusing (Bent, 1984;Carr, 1984;Garnett & Treagust, 1992;Gilbert & Boulter, 2000) although some researchers (Russell, Kozma, Jones, et al1997) advocate that learning with diverse models prevents students developing alternative conceptions that are hard to change. This problem is particularly severe for young students and for those students whose abstract reasoning is poorly developed.…”

Section: Student Modelling Abilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual change: A powerful framework for improving science teaching and learning

Duit

Treagust

2003

International Journal of Science Education

Self Cite

930

494

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionIn this review, we discuss (1) how the notion of conceptual change has developed over the past three decades, (2) giving rise to alternative approaches for analysing conceptual change, (3) leading towards a multi-perspective view of science learning and instruction that (4) can be used to examine scientific literacy and (5) lead to a powerful framework for improving science teaching and learning. Development of the notion of conceptual change Historical developmentsResearch on students' and teachers' conceptions and their roles in teaching and learning science has become one of the most important domains of science education research on teaching and learning during the past three decades. Starting in the 1970s with the investigation of students' pre-instructional conceptions on various science content domains such as the electric circuit, force, energy, combustion, and evolution, the analysis of students' understanding across most science domains has been comprehensively documented in the bibliography by Duit (2002). Two decades ago, research by Gilbert, Osborne and Fensham (1982) showed that children are not passive learners and the way they make sense of their experiences led to this intuitive knowledge being called "children's science" (p. 623). Findings from many studies over the past three decades show that students do not come into science instruction without any pre-instructional knowledge or beliefs about the phenomena and concepts to be taught. Rather, students already hold deeply rooted conceptions and ideas that are not in harmony with the science views or are even in stark contrast to them. It is noteworthy that there are still a remarkable number of studies on students' learning in science that primarily investigate such students' conceptions on the content level. Since the middle of the 1980s investigations of students' conceptions at meta-levels, namely conceptions of the nature of science and views of learning (i.e., meta-cognitive conceptions) also have been given considerable attention. Research shows that students' conceptions here are also rather limited and naive.The 1980s saw the growth of studies investigating the development of students' pre-instructional conceptions towards the intended science concepts in conceptual change approaches. Research on students' conceptions and conceptual change has been embedded in various theoretical frames over the past decades. Initially, Piagetian ideas were applied that drew primarily on stage theory on the one hand and his clinical interview on the other. Also basic frameworks of the emerging theories of cognitive psychology were adopted.Later analogous to that of mindfulness (Salomon & Globerson, 1987, p. 623), a "construct which reflects a voluntary state of mind, and connects among motivation, cognition and learning." The concept of conceptual changeResearch on the concept of conceptual change has developed a unique vocabulary because conceptual change can happen at a number of levels and different authors use alternative terms to descri...

show abstract

“…Les diffi cultés sur le déplacement des porteurs de charges (Garnett & Treagust, 1992) sont gérées par des représentations au niveau microscopique.…”

Section: • Piles Et éLectrolyseursunclassified

La simulation en chimie au sein du projet Microméga®

Maréchal¹,

Bécu‐Robinault²

2006

aster

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

L'importance de la modélisation dans l'enseignement scientifi que a été décrite à de nombreuses reprises (Martinand, 1992 ;Gilbert, 1993 ;Tiberghien 1994). Elle est souvent traduite par le fait que les modèles sont des produits de l'activité scientifi que, permettant aux scientifi ques de dépasser la simple description des faits, de mettre en relation la perception des phénomènes et le recours aux formalismes théoriques. Les modèles constituent un outil privilégié pour véhiculer les idées scientifi ques entre chercheurs, ou entre l'enseignant et ses élèves, pour rendre compte, interpréter, ou prévoir les phénomènes. Leur apprentissage reste un enjeu majeur de l'enseignement, même si les élèves les laissent coexister avec leurs intuitions initiales (Scott, 1992). Les élèves sont rarement disposés à remplacer leurs propres modèles par ceux, plus théoriques (par exemple celui du gaz parfait), proposés par la science (Chi et al., 1994), car certains changements de modèles demandent des transformations ontologiques se traduisant par de profondes et coûteuses reconceptualisations. L'étude des modèles, incluant celle de leurs limites, doit être prise en charge pendant l'enseignement puisque les élèves sont rarement familiers avec les modèles scientifi ques et leurs représentations métaphoriques (Duit, 1991).

show abstract

Conceptual difficulties experienced by senior high school students of electrochemistry: Electric circuits and oxidation‐reduction equations

Cited by 169 publications

References 18 publications

The Development of Authentic Assessments to Investigate Ninth Graders’ Scientific Literacy: In the Case of Scientific Cognition Concerning the Concepts of Chemistry and Physics

The Development of Authentic Assessments to Investigate Ninth Graders’ Scientific Literacy: In the Case of Scientific Cognition Concerning the Concepts of Chemistry and Physics

Conceptual change: A powerful framework for improving science teaching and learning

La simulation en chimie au sein du projet Microméga®

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About