Influence of Context on Stoichiometry Conceptual and Algorithmic Subject Matter Knowledge among South African Physical Sciences Teachers

Abstract

Teachers’ conceptual subject matter knowledge of stoichiometry is a global concern. Such knowledge is contextually dependent, as is the feasibility of attaining particular outcomes during in-service teacher education workshops. In an attempt to understand what is feasible in various contexts, I explore the relationships between South African physical sciences teachers’ environments, education, and teaching experience and their possession of, and ease with which they learn, various types of stoichiometry knowledge. This is done through the analysis of the pre- and posttest and biographical survey data obtained from 184 teachers who attended a two-day stoichiometry workshop. The findings suggest that teachers teaching in contexts of poverty, particularly when lacking a B.Sc. degree, show a particularly high preference for algorithmic over conceptual knowledge. The success with which the teachers in the sample learned facts about relationships between concepts during the two-day workshop suggests that such an approach could provide an entry point into currently less feasible conceptual learning. No correlation was found between extent of tertiary chemistry study and stoichiometry subject matter knowledge, even for teachers with a B.Sc. degree. Statistically significantly higher levels of stoichiometry knowledge were found for the following teacher groupings compared to their counterparts: teaching in a school serving a socioeconomically more advantaged community; having over three years’ teaching experience; possessing a B.Sc. degree. The suggestions derived for in-service teacher education targets are likely to have relevance in developing countries and in developed countries where considerable socioeconomic differences exist.

The efficacy of instruction in application of mole ratios and submicro- and macro-scopic equivalent forms of the mole within the unit factor method

“…Mismatch between successful application of mole-related equivalence within calculation and conceptual questions. The findings given in Stott (2020) are related to those discussed in this article, since they refer to the same data set resulting from the same series of interventions. These showed that improvement for various categories of conceptual knowledge across the intervention was context dependent.…”

“…The pre-and post-tests each contained sixteen multiple choice questions which were identical between the tests, and four calculation questions which differed slightly between the tests, although the difficulty (Horvat et al, 2016) and complexity (Knaus et al, 2011) levels of corresponding questions are considered comparable, as indicated in Appendix B. The multiple choice questions have been given, justified and analysed, in Stott (2020). Two of these questions measured algorithmic manipulation rather than conceptual understanding, and so have been excluded from this study.…”

“…This belief in the conceptual value of such interrelations has, for example, led to recent calls for greater use and interconnection of these forms of representation in Chemistry textbooks (Ramnarain and Chanetsa, 2016) and their modelling and explicit instruction in teacher education programmes (Mweshi et al, 2020). From the perspective of cognitive load theory, it is, however, unsurprising that teachers find it difficult to pay attention to each of these forms of representation, as well as their interconnection, in the classroom (Koopman, 2017), and therefore unsurprising that the mole concept specifically (Malcolm et al, 2019), and stoichiometry more broadly (Stott, 2020), tend to be poorly understood.…”

The Effectiveness of the EIGER Learning Strategy in Promoting Students’ Conceptual and Algorithmic Understanding of Stoichiometry

“…Thus, the only key factor that affects teaching and learning for concept development is finding out what is known to students before each instruction so formation of alternative concepts can be avoided (Hanson, 2016). According to Ausubel's theory of meaningful learning (Stott, 2020), instructions 48…”

“…Then, students are guided to find new concepts in the investigation stage by engaging them directly in a practicum or by giving them concrete data so they can analyze such data and discover new concepts. According to (Stott, 2020), instructions that provide facts on the interconnection between one concept and another can promote conceptual understanding. After students' understanding is formed, the students are taken to a problem in the guided-connection stage, so it can be discovered whether the concepts formed can be applied correctly by the students in solving problems and it can be ensured that no alternative concepts are used by the students in their problem-solving activity.…”