Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION, cilt.83, ss.1719-1723, 2006 (SCI-Expanded)
Students and teachers in several countries find electrochemistry
topics difficult to comprehend because of their abstract
and dynamic nature (1–4). Intending to analyze this
difficulty, researchers have conducted a number of studies to
identify students’ misconceptions (5–15). The results of these
studies show that students from different countries and at different
levels have common misconceptions in electrochemistry.
Likewise, concepts are often poorly presented to students,
who then typically just memorize the concepts without gaining
a meaningful understanding. These studies document students’
misconceptions and the possible sources. Researchers
in general conclude that students’ misconceptions result mostly
from imprecise, insufficient, and inappropriate explanations
from textbooks or instructors’ comments.
Considering the possible origins of electrochemical misconceptions,
researchers have drafted suggestions to improve
students’ conceptual understandings (6–14). These suggestions
include the following ideas:
• Teachers and curriculum developers need to select
explanatory language with care, and be particularly
cautious in using language having everyday meanings
that differ from these meanings in a scientific context.
• Teachers and curriculum developers need to be cautious
in making unqualified, generalized statements
about concepts because students tend to interpret the
statements literally and apply them more extensively
than is intended.
• Teachers should deal with misconceptions explicitly
and spend time making specific mention of possible
areas of confusion.
• Carefully written presentations and specially designed
diagnostic tests should be developed to avoid the use
of vague or misleading statements, while providing students
with accurate information.
• Conventional methods of teaching should be modified
if students’ erroneous beliefs are to be replaced
with scientific explanations, and qualitative interpretation
should not be ignored.
• Future research should focus on producing teaching
approaches that minimize the formation of students’
misconceptions in electrochemistry.
Various instructional strategies can be used to promote
meaningful learning and to eliminate or, at least, minimize
misconceptions in electrochemistry (12, 16–26). Posner et
al. (27) propose a conceptual change model of how students’
conceptions change under the influence of new ideas and new
evidence. This model describes learning as an active process
in which conceptions of new experiences are built as a result
of instruction with previous experiences. Conceptual change
is a process that involves realigning, reorganizing, or replacing
existing conceptions to accommodate new ideas. The effectiveness
of a conceptual change teaching approach in
science education has been demonstrated by numerous studies
(21, 22, 28–33).
One of the instructional strategies based on a conceptual
change approach is the use of conceptual change texts
that evoke learners’ preconceptions, caution learners about
common misconceptions, and contrast the misconceptions
with scientifically accepted conceptions by using examples
and explanations. In this strategy, learners are asked explicitly
to make predictions about a given situation before presenting
the misconceptions and explanations about the given
content (29, 30, 32). Many studies have shown that conceptual
change texts facilitate students’ learning of science concepts,
challenge students’ misconceptions, and lead to better
understandings of concepts (28, 30, 32, 34). However, the
studies involving instructional strategies in conjunction with
conceptual change texts in the area of electrochemistry are
scarce.