The Development of Research in the Field of Chemistry Education at the University of Novi Sad since the Breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Abstract

The first PhD thesis in the field of Chemistry Education at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, was defended in 1992. This can be regarded as the symbolic dawn of Chemistry Education as a scientific discipline in this region. After the official breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, research that had started in the 1980s, and which was focused on the development of tools for assessing the quality and flexibility of student knowledge, was continued through the 1990s. This research included the application of computers to chemistry teaching, as well as the development of appropriate chemistry learning programmes. In the following period, research focused on the analysis of chemical teaching programmes in the Republic of Serbia, with a special emphasis on the possibility of including eco-chemical content in curricula. Accordingly, potentially efficient models were suggested. The most recent research has been focused on the investigation of the effectiveness of instructional strategies based on a systemic approach and a triplet model of content representation, using combined measures of students’ performance and mental effort. In this regard, tools for the efficient assessment of knowledge (systemic synthesis questions, context-based questions) have been developed along with tools for the efficient assessment of students’ misconceptions (multi-tier tests). Furthermore, in order to make teaching more effective, procedures for assessing the cognitive complexity of chemical problems have recently been developed and subsequently validated both statistically and by applying Knowledge Space Theory.