Systemic Synthesis Questions [SSynQs] as Tools to Help Students to Build Their Cognitive Structures in a Systemic Manner

Abstract

Many studies dedicated to the teaching and learning of organic chemistry courses have emphasized that high school students have shown significant difficulties in mastering the concepts of this discipline. Therefore, the aim of our study was to help students to overcome these difficulties by applying systemic synthesis questions, [SSynQs], as the instructional method in our intervention. This work shows that students from the group exposed to the new teaching method achieved higher scores on final testing than students from the control group, who were taught by the traditional method, when students' achievements in conventional, linear questions [LQs] and in [SSynQs] were studied. These results were followed by observation of lower levels of mental effort by students from the intervention group, and higher levels of mental effort in the control group, invested during solving both types of questions. This correlation between achievement and mental effort resulted in high instructional efficiency for the applied method in the intervention group, [SSynQs], and low instructional efficiency for the traditional teaching and learning method applied in the control group. A systemic triangular relation between achievement, mental effort, and instructional efficiency, established by each group and gender, emphasized that the application of [SSynQs] was more suited to female students than for male students because of [SSynQs] characteristics as teaching and learning tools and because of learning style and ability differences between genders.

The influence of instructional method on students' achievement and mental effort: Systemic versus traditional approach in secondary organic chemistry teaching

“…Or, it could be said that [SSynQs] have positively affected the balance between the experimental group students' mental effort and achievement. These findings seem to confirm the instructional effect of [SSynQs] previously addressed by Hrin et al (2015aHrin et al ( , 2015b.…”

“…The following results (Table 1) confirmed that the students who were learning with [SSynQs] showed significantly better learning achievement that those who were taught by traditional method, when we examined students' achievement in conventional, linear questions, [LQs], and systemically oriented questions, [SSynQs]. These findings were in accordance with studies in which systemic diagrams (Fahmy & Lagowski, 2002Golemi et al, 2014;Hrin et al, 2014) and [SSynQs] (Hrin et al, 2015a(Hrin et al, , 2015b were evaluated in chemistry educational process as effective instructional tools.…”

“…On the other hand, systemic instructional approach was able to reduce students' mental effort, as a result of learning with [SSynQs]. Such findings had been previously reported in the paper by Hrin et al (2015b), processing another organic chemistry topic: "Hydrocarbons and halogen derivatives of hydrocarbons". After it had been found that the experimental group reported lower levels of mental effort than the control group during solving the final test questions, it was important to verify if there was significant difference in the students' mental effort between examined types of test questions.…”

“…The latest study within systemic approach has considered the application of systemic questions as instructional tools, including one additional variable -students' cognitive load (Hrin et al, 2015b). The main results of this study indicated that systemic synthesis questions [SSynQs] -a specific form of systemic questions, besides on students' achievement, could also have positive impact on students' cognitive load.…”

The Comparison of the Knowledge of Pre-Service Teacher on the Nitrogen-Phosphorus Cycles Using the Writing and Drawing Method

“…During the study the 60 candidate teachers were asked to carry out drawings of the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and to explain what they know on these subjects in writing. A descriptive analysis was conducted on the drawings and written explanations obtained, and, these were assessed based on the 5 different levels used by Bartoszeck et al (2008), Uzunkavak (2009a), Uzunkavak (2009b) and Hrin et al (2016).…”