Experienced Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Teaching Acid–base Chemistry

Abstract

We investigated the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of nine experienced chemistry teachers. The teachers took part in a teacher training course on students' difficulties and the use of models in teaching acid-base chemistry, electrochemistry, and redox reactions. Two years after the course, the teachers were interviewed about their PCK of (1) students' difficulties in understanding acid-base chemistry and (2) models of acids and bases in their teaching practice. In the interviews, the teachers were asked to comment on authentic student responses collected in a previous study that included student interviews about their understanding of acids and bases. Further, the teachers drew story-lines representing their level of satisfaction with their acid-base teaching. The results show that, although all teachers recognised some of the students' difficulties as confusion between models, only a few chose to emphasise the different models of acids and bases. Most of the teachers thought it was sufficient to distinguish clearly between the phenomenological level and the particle level. The ways the teachers reflected on their teaching, in order to improve it, also differed. Some teachers reflected more on students' difficulties; others were more concerned about their own performance. Implications for chemistry (teacher) education are discussed.

A Comparison of Different Teaching Designs of ‘Acids and Bases’ Subject

“…Drechsler and Driel (2008) To explore experienced teachers' pedagogical content knowledge of acids and bases topic.…”

“… The current study models how to adapt popular/contemporary learning approaches (REACT strategy and 5Es learning model) in pre-service education (especially, science education). The acid-base studies cover middle school (e.g., Bilgin & Yahşi, 2006;Botton, 1995;Oversby, 2000;Sisovic & Bojovic, 2000), secondary school (e.g., Cokelez & Dumon, 2009;Hand, 1989;Yaman, Demircioğlu & Ayas, 2006;Wilson, 1998), undergraduate (e.g., Bradley & Mosimege, 1998Yıldız, Yıldırım & İlhan, 2006), preservice education (e.g., Üce & Sarıçayır, 2002;Özmen, 2003), in-service education (e.g., Cho, 2002;Drechsler & Driel, 2008), and post-graduate education (e.g., Wilson, 1998). Further, of these sample groups, Grades 8 (e.g.…”

“…However, concept test as a cognitive measure (Bradley & Mosimege, 1998), interviews (Drechsler & Driel, 2008;Hand, 1989;Kala et al, 2013;Üce & Sarıçayır, 2002), and attitude or aptitude scales (i.e. Kılavuz, 2005;Üce & Sarıçayır, 2002) have been widely preferred to measure the sample's views/attitudes and their conceptual understanding of the acid-base concepts.…”

Preparedness for tertiary chemistry: multiple applications of the Chemistry Competence Test for diagnostic and prediction purposes

“…Thus, it may come as a surprise that this topic is not given adequate prominence in the secondary school syllabus in South Africa. Students' difficulties in conceptualising acid-base equilibria have been documented, for example Kousathana et al, (2005), Drechsler and Van Driel (2008) Barke et al, (2009), andDuit (2009). Submicro diagrams are a very useful tool to probe students understanding of a particular concept .…”

The pH ruler: A Java applet for developing interactive exercises on acids and bases

“…Unfortunately, many of these students still have difficulty applying these concepts to many of the basic problems encountered in biochemistry. Many of the problems encountered by students when they are introduced to acid-base concepts in secondary school have been studied in detail [1][2][3]. Unfortunately, these problems are mostly perpetuated for more advanced students if fundamental misunderstandings and conceptual weaknesses are not addressed.…”