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Enhancing Pre-service Elementary Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of Solution Chemistry with Conceptual Change Text

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Abstract

This paper reports on the use of a constructivist-based pedagogy to enhance understanding of some features of solution chemistry. Pre-service science teacher trainees' prior knowledge about the dissolution of salts and sugar in water were elicited by the use of a simple diagnostic tool. The test revealed widespread alternative conceptions. These evaluation data were used to produce two segments of ‘conceptual change text’: concise summaries that present alternative and scientific conceptualizations for the concepts under study. The texts were administered to 21 pre-service elementary trainee teachers whose understandings of number of conceptions were subsequently re-evaluated employing a pre-test post-test approach in which their answers and reasons for their answers were solicited. The findings suggest that these pre-service elementary trainees' alternative conceptions are changed to become more in accord with the scientific view, with more participants providing correct answers along with correct reasons than before the intervention. This work suggests that the use of conceptual change text may provide a simple and cost and resource-effective way to aid conceptual understanding for the dissolution of ionic solids in water including the effect of solute surface on the dissolution process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. KTU, Giresun Faculty of Education, Department of Elementary Science Education, 28200, Giresun, Turkey

    Muammer Çalik

  2. Fatih Faculty of Education, Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education, 61335, Söğütlü-Trabzon, Turkey

    Alipaşa Ayas

  3. Centre for Science & Technology Education Research, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Richard Kevin Coll

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  1. Muammer Çalik
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  2. Alipaşa Ayas
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  3. Richard Kevin Coll
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Correspondence to Muammer Çalik.

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Çalik, M., Ayas, A. & Coll, R.K. Enhancing Pre-service Elementary Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of Solution Chemistry with Conceptual Change Text. Int J Sci Math Educ 5, 1–28 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-005-9016-5

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