Session Information
27 SES 08 B, Visual and ICT Artefacts in Didactical Designs
Paper/Poster Session
Contribution
Students’ ideas about scientific concepts have been a major focus of science education research for 30 years (Driver & Easley, 1978; Duit & Treagust, 1995). Researchers agree that students come to science classrooms with their prior knowledge and daily experiences (Vosniadou, 2002) and have already had some conceptions about scientific phenomena. However, these conceptions differ from scientific conceptions and are defined in the literature as various terms such as misconceptions (Nakhleh, 1992), alternative conceptions (Abimbola, 1988; Driver and Easley, 1978) and children’s science (Gilbert, Osborne and Fensham, 1982) which interfere students’ subsequent learning (Ausubel & Robinson, 1969). Chandrasegaran et al. (2007) indicated that students’ alternative conceptions are often resistant to instruction, with many students developing only a limited understanding even after instruction.
Particulate nature of matter is one of the fundamental concepts in science (Taber, 2002) and has become a widely investigated topic by researchers over the past thirty years (Özmen, 2013). Many studies investigated students’ conceptions of the particulate nature of matter and found that students at all grade levels have several misconceptions of the particulate nature of matter (Adbo & Taber, 2009; Boz, 2006; Nakhleh & Samarapungavan, 1999; Nakhleh et al., 2005; Othman et al., 2008; Paik et al., 2004; Papageorgiou, & Johnson, 2005; Singer et al., 2003; Taber & Garcia-Franco, 2010). Studies found that there can be some sources of students’ misconceptions including their teachers (Çalık & Ayas, 2005; Ginns & Watters, 1995; Quiles-Pardo & Solaz-Portole´s, 1995), textbooks (Abimbola & Baba, 1996), ineffective traditional instructions (Bunce & Gabel, 2002), models and analogies (Glynn, 1991; Treagust, 1993; Orgill & Bodner, 2004).
Moreover, researchers in chemistry education agree that conceptual understanding of chemistry topics depends on an understanding between the three levels of representations including macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic in chemistry, and the ability to shift among them (Gabel, 1999; Johnstone, 1991; 1999; Talanquer, 2011; Treagust et al., 2003). Macroscopic representations refer to the observable features of matter while submicroscopic representations refer to occurrences at molecular level, and symbolic representations are based on symbols such as formulas or graphs (Gabel, 1999; Talanquer, 2011). Research has shown that students’ inability to properly transfer one form of representation into another may result in the development of nonscientific understandings of chemistry concepts (Treagust, Chittleborough, & Mamiala, 2003). Therefore, using multiple representations and models in teaching chemistry have been widely discussed and supported in the literature (Adadan et al., 2009; Ainsworth, 2008; Gilbert & Treagust, 2009; Yakmaci-Guzel & Adadan, 2013)
Textbooks are one of the primary teaching tools frequently used in schools and most teachers use them in their classrooms (Sanchez and Valcarcel, 1999). Moreover, textbooks are also one of the major sources of representations and images that students face in science classrooms. Therefore, some studies recently investigate chemistry and science textbooks in terms of representations of chemical concepts (Bergqvist, Drechler, De Jong, & Rundgren, 2013; Nyachwaya & Wood, 2014). However, it is also needed to conduct studies focusing on how students understand images of chemical concepts in science textbooks. The purpose of this study is to investigate middle school students’ conceptions of the PNM, their understanding of images of the PNM in textbooks and if there is any relationship between students’ conceptions and images of the PNM in textbooks. The research was guided by the following research questions:
- What are middle school students’ conceptions of the particulate nature of matter?
- How do middle school students understand images of the particulate nature of matter in the science textbooks?
- Is there any relationship between students’ conceptions and textbooks’ images of the particulate nature of matter?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Adadan, E., Irving, K.E. & Trundle, K. C. (2009). Impacts of multi-representational instruction on high school students’ conceptual understandings of the particulate nature of matter. International Journal of Science Education, 31(13), 1743-1775. Adbo, K. & Taber, K.S. (2009). Learners’ mental models of the particle nature of matter: A study of 16-year-old Swedish science students. International Journal of Science Education, 31(6), 757-786. Ainsworth S., (2008), The educational value of multiple representations when learning complex scientific concepts, in Gilbert J. K., Reiner, M. and Nakhleh M. (ed.), Visualization: Theory and Practice in Science Education (pp.191–208). Springer. Bergqvist, A., Drechsler, M., De Jong, O., & Rundgren, S. C. (2013). Representations of chemical bonding models in school textbooks-help or hindrance for understanding? CERP, 14, 589-606. Boz, Y. (2006). Turkish pupils’ conception of the particulate nature of matter. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 15(2), 203-213. Gilbert, J.K., & Treagust, D. (2009). Multiple Representations in Chemical Education. London, UK: Springer. Harrison, A. G. & Treagust, D. F. (2002). The particulate nature of matter: Challenges in understanding the microscopic world. In J. K. Gilbert et al. (Eds.), Chemical Education: Towards Research-Based Practice, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Johnstone, A.H. (1999). The nature of chemistry. Education in Chemistry, 36(2), 45–47. Nakhleh, M. B., Samarapungavan, A. & Saglam, Y. (2005). Middle school students’ beliefs about matter. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 42(5), 581-612. Nyachwaya, J. M., & Wood, N. B. (2014). Evaluation of chemical representations in physical chemistry textbooks. Chemistry Education: Research and Practice, 15, 720-728. Özmen, H. (2013). A cross-national review of the studies on the Particulate Nature of Matter and related concepts. Eurasian Journal of Physics and Chemistry Education, 5(2), 81-110. Taber, K. S. (2002). Chemical misconceptions—Prevention, diagnosis and cure: Theoretical background. London: Royal Society of Chemistry. Taber, K. S. & Garcia-Franco, A. (2010). Learning processes in chemistry: Drawing upon cognitive resources to learn about the particulate structure of matter. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19(1), 99-142. Talanquer, V. (2011). Macro, submicro, and symbolic: The many faces of the chemistry ‘triplet’. International Journal of Science Education, 33(2), 179–195. Treagust, D. F. (1993). The evolution of an approach for using analogies in teaching and learning science. Research in Science Education, 23, 293-301. Treagust, D.F., Chittleborough, G., & Mamiala, T.L. (2003). The role of submicroscopic and symbolic representations in chemical explanations. International Journal of Science Education,25(11), 1353–1368. Yakmaci-Guzel B. and Adadan E., (2013), IJESE, 8(1), 109–130.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.