The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an expository advance organizer on the achievement of students in a general chemistry course. The subjects included 181 first year college students enrolled in 12 sections of general chemistry at the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, Thailand. The subjects were randomly assigned by section into two treatment and control groups. The treatment groups received an advance organizer or an introductory passage prior to instruction. The control group received no treatment prior to instruction. The equivalence of the control and two treatment groups at the beginning of the study was determined by the application of a teacher-made pretest. No significant differences in chemistry achievement were found among the three groups. Prior to classroom instruction and laboratory instruction, the advance organizer group received expository organizers, and the introductory passage group received introductory passages to read and study. The treatment period covered 21 days of instruction. Upon completion of all study material, a teacher-made achievement posttest covering the material taught during the study was administered to all groups. The posttest was administered again two weeks later as a retention test. Achievement test scores were analyzed by use of a one-way analysis of variance. The results indicated that the advance organizer group performed significantly better than the control and introductory passage groups on the achievement posttest and retention test. Theses findings provided evidence that an expository organizer facilitated learning and retention of general chemistry more than an introductory passage and no treatment. These results supported Ausubel's Advance Organizer Theory in the facilitating effects of advance organizers on student achievement. / Graduation date: 1992

The reaction rate of a chemical process, and the factors that affect it, is an important concept in the secondary school chemistry curriculum. A number of studies have indicated that students have different conceptions of the reaction rate phenomenon, e.g. that volume is an influential factor. The way in which the teacher structures the lesson content and the students experience the lesson is important in helping students to develop appropriate conceptions. This study explores the efficacy of using variation theory as a pedagogical tool to improve student understanding of chemical reaction rates at the Secondary 4 level through group-based scientific investigation. A design-based research approach with a pretest and posttest was chosen, and phenomenography and variation theory were adopted as the theoretical framework. Learning is defined as a change in the way of experiencing something. What is to be learnt is defined as the “object of learning”, and aspects that are crucial to appropriating the object of learning are defined as “critical aspects”. To bring out the critical aspects that are to be discerned by students, certain patterns of variation, namely, generalization, contrast, separation and fusion, must be constituted. Two Secondary 4 chemistry classes in the same school were taught by one teacher. Lessons comprised three sections: a single period for introduction, a double period for experimentation and a single period for debriefing. The two classes were taught in the same way during the introduction and experimentation, but different debriefing sequences were used after the students’ experimental work. During the introduction and experimentation, “separation” was employed to help students develop a fair test concept and design an experiment to follow the progress of a chemical reaction. During experimentation, they were guided in how to discern the factors that affect two aspects of a reaction, i.e. the reaction rate and amount of products formed. In the debriefing session of the pilot and main studies, different “sequences of factors” and “sequences of aspects” were followed, respectively. Comparison was made between the pretest and posttest to trace students’ understanding of the reaction aspects. The quantitative data were analysed and triangulated with the post-lesson interview data and verbatim lesson record. The students’ learning outcomes showed that there had been substantial improvement in understanding of the skills and concepts involved, with the gap between the low- and high-score groups narrowing. A specific debriefing sequence was found to be conducive to learning. Further, discussing the interrelated factors tested in the experimental conditions consecutively and separating the two reaction aspects while fusing the factors appeared effective in highlighting the part-part and part-whole relationships. Here, “whole” refers to a reaction consisting of the “parts” constituted by the reaction rate and amount of products which in turn depend on various factors. The findings of this study suggest that variation theory is a powerful pedagogical tool in improving the understanding of students of lower academic ability. They thus have important implications for the planning of teaching-learning sequences in practical science lessons, particularly in scientific investigations that involve different task-pool results. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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This experiment demonstrated that it is possible to use classroom intervention to change the attitudes of female college students towards theoretical and applied chemistry. A pilot study was used to test the experimental design, develop measuring instruments and obtain some preliminary information on the attitudes of college science students. The experiment was of the pretest, post-test, experimental, control group design with a total sample size of 204 students. The treatment experienced by the experimental group consisted of a modified curriculum that included information about topics found by the researcher to be of interest to women, information about how chemistry benefits human health and the environment, a laboratory manual containing profiles of prominent Canadian women chemists and visits by women chemical engineers. Regression analysis of the data showed a significant positive change in the attitudes of the female students in the experimental group (p $<$.05) and there was some indication that more of them were contemplating a career in the theoretical or applied physical sciences. The experiment indicated the importance of sensitizing college instructors to the needs of female students. A series of recommendations for college instructors and the Ministry of Education resulted from this work.

This thesis is concerned with the design, development and implementation of Microcomputer-Based Laboratory experiments appropriate for Chemistry 11 and 12 in British Columbia. Computer apparatus, software and instructional materials were designed and constructed with feeedback and assistance from students and teachers. These materials were then used in the classroom laboratory to collect and prepare real-time graphs of pH, spectrophotometric and temperature data for modified versions of laboratories 2a, 16b, 19b, and 20h taken from the Canadianized Heath Chemistry laboratory program. Results of student academic performance are presented, along with samples of the interactions used during iterative materials design. The appropriateness of MBL incorporation is discussed at length, and suggested courses of action presented to B.C. Chemistry educators interested in acquiring MBL technology. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

D.Ed. (Didactics) / This study focused on the misconceptions which exist among standerd ten pupils in the field of chemical equilibrium and the rate of chemical reactions. Although the teacher Is confident that meaningful teaching occurs In the classroom situation, misconceptions do materialise frequently. Several factors concerning the pupil, the teacher as well as the subject content Itself were Investigated. The main objective of this study Is to Investigate the nature and extent of the misconceptions regarding the rate of chemical reactions and the chemical equilibrium experienced by standard ten pupils. Following this, pupils are exposed to a computer program which has been complied to eliminate the misconceptions regarding these two themes...

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Science Education) Johannesburg, 2017 / Over the past three years, National Senior Certificate diagnostic reports reported that learner performance in key chemistry topics remains an aspect for concern. In these reports, poor understanding of stoichiometry is identified as an underlying factor. On the other hand, the status of mathematics and science teaching has been under critique by several education researchers, pointing to poor teacher training in the subjects. One possible way to respond to the challenge in science education is to introduce and emphasize the development of Topic Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TSPCK) as the professional knowledge for teaching science topics in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme. TSPCK is renowned for enabling teachers to pedagogically transform difficult content of specific science topics into forms best understandable by learners. This study examined the impact on the quality of TSPCK following an intervention that explicitly targeted the development of the competence to transform content knowledge using stoichiometry as a topic of learning. This examination happened as teacher plan to teach the topic. The study followed a Mixed Method research design and a case study as a research strategy. It was located in the methodology class of physical science IV. The participants were 10 pre-service teachers who were in their final year of Bachelor study in education (B. Ed). They were bound by the requirements of the course and their common choice of physical science as their major subject. These pre-service teachers were exposed to a TSPCK based intervention that explicitly targeted the development of TSPCK component interaction. More evidence of component interactions was comprehended as developing quality of TSPCK. Quantitative data was collected as a set of pre- and post-intervention TSPCK tests using existing, specially designed tools that were developed and validated in a separate study. Five (5) of the then pre-service were followed a year later after the intervention to measure the quality of TSPCK in the topic of intervention in order to determine the extent of retention of the quality of TSPCK since the intervention. Qualitative data was collected through face to face interviews to confirm observed patterns of retention. The findings in this study indicated that pre-service teachers experienced a visible improvement in the quality of their TSPCK in stoichiometry as a direct result of the intervention. Pre-service teachers showed more evidence of component interactions post the intervention. The results further indicated that pre-service teachers experienced the components of TSPCK to have different levels of difficulty when using them to transform the content in stoichiometry during planning. The component of ―conceptual teaching strategies‖ was found to be the most difficult. A year later, the quality of TSPCK in planning to teach the topic of the intervention was found to have been retained by the then pre-service teachers. Recommendations about the implementation of TSPCK in core topics in ITE are made. Firstly, for initial teacher education, it is recommended that courses such as methodology for teaching chemistry be structured as TSPCK based intervention. Secondly, more work need to be done in the examination of retention span of TSPCK. Thus, similar studies must be conducted in an effort to increase empirical evidence about the extent at which TSPCK is retained by beginning teachers. / MT 2017