The purposes of this study were: to compare students' performance on conceptual and algorithmic chemistry problems; to investigate the relationships between learning orientation, formal reasoning, and mental capacity and students' performance on conceptual and algorithmic problems; and to investigate interactions among learning orientation, formal…

This contribution presents a tool elaborated from a theoretical framework linking epistemological, learning and didactical hypotheses. This framework lead to design teaching sequences from a socio-constructivist perspective, and is based on the role of models in physics or chemistry, and on the role of students' initial knowledge in learning…

This paper reports upon a study addressing teaching and learning about solubility to Turkish first-year secondary school students (age 14-15). The principal aim of the research was to investigate the impact on students' understanding of solubility, of introducing a simple particle model of matter. A teaching intervention to fit within the existing…

Even though philosophical themes in science education have been advocated for several decades, little attention has been paid to how these themes can be contextualized in the teaching of a particular domain of science. The purpose of this paper is to provide an example theoretical framework for applying a philosophical theme, reduction, in…

This study, based on constructivist learning theory, examined how effectively preservice chemistry teachers (N = 43) can be educated to think flexibly and to reorganize their thinking in a way that may complement diverse ways students approach the subject domain. The teacher's cognitive structure was assessed prior to and after a conceptual change…

In view of the research on education--and subject-related education in particular--that has been conducted in recent years, it would seem useful to describe the current state and future trends of research on science teaching and learning. In the present article, research findings are described, the deficits of science education are analyzed, and…

Many mathematics departments usually teach a variety of courses for students from different science departments and even from different faculties. These "service" courses are usually taught in the same way as the courses for mathematics major students. However, in science, because of the need to better analyse and interpret experimental…

The traditional order in which science courses are taught in U.S. high schools is biology, chemistry, physics. The physics course usually is regarded as very difficult because it requires both high-level mathematical skills and high-level thinking skills; it is taught in the final year of high school to provide time for students to develop the…

Turkey has a central educational system in which all of the programs are designed by the Ministry of National Education and distributed to the implementing institutions. As a part of this system, the textbooks written by different writers need to be approved by the commission called Talim Terbiye Kurulu, and these approved books are chosen as…

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of conceptual change texts oriented instruction on 10th grade students' understanding of solubility equilibrium concept. The misconceptions related to solubility equilibrium concept were obtained through interviews with high school chemistry teachers and related literature. The data were obtained…

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of conceptual change texts oriented instruction on 9th grade students' understanding of chemical bonding concepts. In this study, the main aim of the preparation of conceptual change texts was to activate students' prior knowledge and misconceptions and to help them to understand the chemical…

Metabolism, the sum of all chemical reactions within a living organism, is one of the most fundamental concepts presented in introductory microbiology courses. However, it is often difficult for instructors to effectively translate perfunctory diagrams of glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, and the electron transport chain in a way that is meaningful to…

In high school, many students do not have an opportunity to learn or use statistics. Because statistics is a powerful tool and many students take a statistics class in college, prior exposure to statistics in a chemistry course (or another course) would benefit students. This paper describes some statistical concepts and tests with their…

A three-week laboratory project involving synthesis and characterization of a layered manganese oxide provides an excellent vehicle for teaching important concepts of inorganic chemistry and instrumental methods related to non-molecular systems. Na-birnessite is an easily prepared manganese oxide with a 7 A interlayer spacing and Na[superscript +]…

This study represents the first attempt to elucidate and detail the types of misconceptions high school students hold relating to basic concepts and topics of nuclear chemistry. A diagnostic multiple-choice test was administered to 157 tenth-grade students (15-16 years old) and the data were analyzed. The results show that high school students…