Meaningful Understanding and Systems Thinking in Organic Chemistry: Validating Measurement and Exploring Relationships

The purpose of this study was dual: First, to develop and validate assessment schemes for assessing 11th grade students’ meaningful understanding of organic chemistry concepts, as well as their systems thinking skills in the domain. Second, to explore the relationship between the two constructs of interest based on students’ performance on the applied assessment framework. For this purpose, (a) various types of objective assessment questions were developed and evaluated for assessing meaningful understanding, (b) a specific type of systemic assessment questions (SAQs) was developed and evaluated for assessing systems thinking skills, and (c) the association between students’ responses on the applied assessment schemes was explored. The results indicated that properly designed objective questions can effectively capture aspects of students’ meaningful understanding. It was also found that the SAQs can elicit systems thinking skills in the context of a formalistic systems thinking theoretical approach. Moreover, a significant relationship was observed between students’ responses on the two assessment strategies. This research provides evidence that students’ systems thinking level within a science domain is significantly related to their meaningful understanding of relative science concepts.     

Design and Development of a Bilingual Multimedia Educational Tool for Teaching Chemistry Concepts to Deaf Students in Greek Sign Language

In this paper the design and development of a multimedia system which serves as a bilingual chemistry educational tool for deaf students is presented. Details of the architecture of the tool, its functionality and formative evaluation results are also presented. Furthermore the process to arrive at the chemistry terminology in Greek Sign Language used throughout the tool is briefly described.     

Conceptual Versus Algorithmic Problem-solving: Focusing on Problems Dealing with Conservation of Matter in Chemistry

The students?? performance in various types of problems dealing with the conservation of matter during chemical reactions has been investigated at different levels of schooling. The participants were 499 ninth grade (ages 14, 15 years) and 624 eleventh grade (ages 16, 17 years) Greek students. Data was collected using a written questionnaire concerning basic chemical concepts. Results of statistical factor and correlation analysis confirmed the classification of the problems used in three types: ??algorithmic-type??, ??particulate-type??, and ??conceptual-type??. All the students had a far better performance in ??particulate-type?? problems than in the others. Although students?? ability in solving ??algorithmic-type?? problem increases as their school experience in chemistry progresses, their ability in solving ??conceptual-type?? problems decreases. Students?? achievement in chemistry was measured by a Chemical Concepts Test (CCT) containing 57 questions of various forms. High-achievement students scored higher both on ??algorithmic-type?? and ??particulate-type?? problems than low achievers with the greatest difference observed in solving ??algorithmic-type?? problems. It is concluded that competence in ??particulate-type?? and ??algorithmic-type?? problem solving may be independent of competence in solving ??conceptual-type?? ones. Furthermore, it was found that students?? misconceptions concerning chemical reactions and equivalence between mass and energy are impediments to their problem solving abilities. Finally, based on the findings, few suggestions concerning teaching practices are discussed.