The purpose of this study was to investigate how a mixed-method case study affects pre-service science teachers' awareness of hexavalent chromium pollution and content knowledge about the properties of chromium's different oxidation states. The study was conducted in Turkey with 55 sophomores during the fall semester of 2013-2014. The…

General chemistry is the first undergraduate course in which students further develop their understanding of fundamental chemical concepts. Many of these fundamental topics highlight the numerous conceptual interconnections present in chemistry. However, many students possess incoherent knowledge structures regarding these topics. Therefore,…

This study aimed to investigate the effect of conceptual change text (CCT) in the REACT strategy for students' conceptions of solutions. A quasi-experimental method was used in the study. The study was carried out in the spring term of the 2012-2013 academic year with 61 freshmen students (aged 18-20 years) studying in the Elementary…

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of case-based instruction on remedying 10th grade students' alternative conceptions related to gas concepts. 128 tenth grade students from two high schools participated in this study. In each school, one of the classes was randomly assigned as the experimental group and the…

The main purpose of this study was to enhance student understanding of the scientific concepts of chemical reaction rate. Forty-four grade 11 students were the target group. The treatment tools were seven learning plans of 5E inquiry incorporated with an analogy learning approach during 15 hours of class time. In each learning plan, the students…

Two-dimensional (2D) diagrams are essential in chemistry for conveying and communicating key knowledge about disciplinary phenomena. While experts are adept at identifying, interpreting, and manipulating these representations, novices often are not. Ongoing research efforts in the field suggest that students' effective use of concrete and…

Organic chemistry education is one of the youngest research areas among all chemistry related research efforts, and its published scholarly work has become vibrant and diverse over the last 15 years. Research on problem-solving behavior, students' use of the arrow-pushing formalism, the investigation of students' conceptual knowledge and…

This paper describes an interdisciplinary investigation of students' usage of ideas about energy from physics in the context of introductory chemistry. We focus on student understanding of the idea that potential energy is a function of distance between interacting objects, a concept relevant to understanding potential energy in both physical…

Student performance in general organic chemistry courses is determined by a wide range of factors including cognitive ability, motivation and cultural capital. Previous work on cognitive factors has tended to focus on specific areas rather than exploring performance across all problem types and cognitive skills. In this study, we have categorized…

Research has shown that high school and college students have a lack of conceptual understanding of global warming, ozone, and the greenhouse effect. Most research in this area used survey methodologies and did not include concepts of atmospheric chemistry and ozone formation. This study investigates college students' understandings of atmospheric…

In college level chemistry courses, reasoning using molecular and particulate descriptions of matter becomes central to understanding physical and chemical properties. In this study, we used a qualitative approach to analyzing classroom discourse derived from Toulmin's model of argumentation in order to describe the ways in which students develop…

Previous research has revealed that students may hold several misconceptions regarding fundamental topics of chemistry. With the idea that teachers play a critical role in diagnosis and remediation of students' misconceptions, a "course" for preservice chemistry teachers was designed. The purpose of this study was to describe the views and…

Textbooks still have the distinction of being the most dominant teaching tool in science teaching. The manner in which a scientific concept is expressed in a textbook is of importance in the in-depth learning process of that concept. With this in mind, problems with expressing the "amount of substance" concept were reviewed in 15 chemistry…

Much scholarship in chemical education draws upon the model of there being three "levels" at which the teaching and learning of chemistry operates, a notion which is often represented graphically in terms of a triangle with the apices labelled as macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic. This model was proposed by Johnstone who argued that…

This study investigated pre-service chemistry teachers' pedagogical content knowledge of the nature of science (NOS) in the content of the particle nature of matter. Qualitative research design was utilized. Data were collected from seven pre-service chemistry teachers (PCTs) by using open-ended questions, interviews, observations, lesson plans,…