African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2018

This study in Zambia examined 66 junior high school pre-service science teachers’ familiarity with, conceptual understanding of and levels of interest in learning more about electrochemistry concepts. Data were collected using the Familiarity with Electrochemistry Questionnaire, the Conceptual Understanding of Electrochemistry Test and the Interest in Electrochemistry Questionnaire. Statistical tests were used to analyse data. Pre-service teachers reported high levels of familiarity with the electrochemistry concepts surveyed. They were more familiar with basic than advanced electrochemistry concepts. On average, participants demonstrated moderate conceptual understanding of electrochemistry concepts. Although there was a significant difference between males’ and females’ familiarity with electrochemistry concepts, there was no significant difference between the two gender groups in their understanding of and interest in electrochemistry. There were no significant correlations betwe...

Asian Social Science, 2014

This study designed primarily to explore conceptual difficulties of secondary school students to understand the basic features of the concept of electrochemistry like redox reactions, galvanic and electrolytic cells. Furthermore, the factors that cause the conceptual difficulties of secondary school students in electrochemistry also investigated. Mixed method research design adopted to achieve the objectives of the current study. Three (3) government secondary schools selected by using the cluster random sampling technique within Bahawalpur City of Pakistan. Then 144 chemistry students of IX class purposively selected as sample of the study. Conceptual difficulties of secondary school students in electrochemistry investigated by developing a special test instrument tagged as Test designed to measure the Conceptual Difficulties in Electrochemistry (TCDE). Eminent experts of chemistry education validated TCDE. A pilot test established to find its reliability by test re-tests method and the correlation coefficient (r) was 0.96. The Cronbach alpha coefficient also calculated to measure the internal consistency of instrument through SPSS, and its value was 0.87. Thirty students selected purposively based on the result of TCDE for semi-structured interview. The result showed that 67% of the concept-based items designed in electrochemistry were difficult to understand by secondary school students. Poor background of knowledge, absence of teaching aids, and misunderstanding of language caused conceptual difficulty in comprehension. The findings suggested some recommendations to expedite better understanding of the chemistry students.

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry

Electrochemistry education of future researchers and citizens is crucial if we are to decarbonise economies and reach targets for net zero. In this paper, we take an overview of electrochemistry within school education. We used curriculum documents obtained from national and state education department websites and from local teachers, examples of assessments and insights from the chemistry education literature to evaluate the extent of electrochemistry education around the world. We found that there is a great deal of electrochemistry included in the intended curriculum for high schools although there is variability depending on how early students are able to specialise in a smaller number of subjects. A range of contexts are used to illustrate the key ideas including galvanic and electrolytic cells, electrolysis and analysis. There is generally constructive alignment between assessment items and the intended curriculum although in some cases assessment was more simplistic than the intended curriculum would suggest. The effectiveness of the taught curriculum is undermined by low teacher confidence in teaching electrochemistry especially more advanced concepts. Additionally, there are a number of misconceptions generated when students learn electrochemistry with some of these potentially arising from published resources such as textbooks.

African Journal of Chemical Education, 2021

This research explored pre-service science educators' comprehension regarding the concepts of galvanic cells, electrode potentials, and electrolytic cells in electrochemistry. A sample of 64 first year trainee science educators selected from the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Ghana was strategically chosen to take part in this investigation in the 2018/2019 academic year. In this study, a pre-test / post-test quasi-experimental framework was adopted to determine how "conceptual change texts" (CCTs) would affect the performance of pre-service science educators in electrochemistry. A two-tier 10 multiple-choice questions (MCQs) termed "electrochemistry concept test" (ECT) was given to them. Results showed that they had difficulties interpreting electrolytic cell-related concepts and most could not differentiate electrolytic cells from galvanic cells. The achievement of learners instructed utilising the Lecture method (LM) was lower than those instructed with the CCTs when a post hoc analysis with a Bonferroni adjustment on the ECT was conducted as a follow up to the one-way between-group analysis of variance, ANCOVA. The study offers comparative data on the importance of meaningful learning for enhancing the conception of electrochemistry by learners. The findings suggest that the CCTs in the experimental group might have caused an increase in pre-service science instructors' intellectual achievement.

Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn), 2020

This current study explored twelfth-grade students' conceptions regarding electrochemistry in the Ximhungwe circuit of the Bohlabela district in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. The sequential explanatory design was used to gather and analyse quantitative data first before gathering and analysing qualitative data for the current study. In the 2015 academic year, a sample of 10 twelfth-grade physical sciences students from four intact science public high schools was conveniently selected to participate in the current study after analysing the results of the quantitative data. Thirteen questions in which at least 30% of students showed misconceptions were selected for the interview. The result of the interviews indicated that students in the experimental group (EG) had more accurate concepts related to the function of the salt bridge in galvanic cells and the concept of electrical neutrality of anodes and cathodes compared to the control group (CG). Both the EG and the CG had the same viewpoints related to oxidation numbers, electrode potential, Emf calculations, and the identity of electrodes in galvanic cells and electrolytic cells when the placement of the electrodes was altered. However, students in both groups had limited knowledge about electrolytic cells, although the CG had more limited comprehension. It was recommended that educators teach concepts as much as they teach algorithms.

Having established from researches that students experience learning difficulties in physical chemistry (electrolysis) and that those researches have not been able to find an end to the learning difficulties known through the use of questionnaires, the study made a comparison of perception and actual students' learning difficulties in physical chemistry (electrolysis). Two hundred chemistry students were selected purposively from thirteen Senior Secondary School Three classes in Ido local government of Oyo State, Nigeria. Three research question and a hypothesis were raised. The instruments used for the collection of data were Students' Learning Difficulty in Physical Chemistry Questionnaire (r = 0.98) and Physical Chemistry Learning Difficulty Diagnostic Test (r = 0.87). The data collected were analysed using simple percentage and chi-square analysis. The result showed that many areas of physical chemistry where students perceived no difficulty were actually difficult for them to solve. It was recommended among other things, that students' perceived difficulty should not be used as the basis for understanding the learning difficulties in electrolysis.

Incoming chemistry students at tertiary institutions have a variety of academic backgrounds that influence their prospects of success at first-year level. The proficiencies of incoming students are currently changing due to the introduction of outcomes-based education and new syllabi for physical science in secondary schools. In order to ensure a smooth transition from secondary to tertiary education university lecturers should be well-informed about the content knowledge, conceptual understanding and skills development of prospective first-year students. This study evaluates the proficiencies of Grade 12 learners in physical science in terms of a number of clearly identified problem areas: conceptual understanding, logical scientific reasoning, basic mathematical ability, knowledge of subject content and scientific process skills. A test instrument was developed that consisted mainly of conceptual questions rather than recall or algorithmic items. Paired questions (two-tier methodology) and pictorial representations were used extensively. A follow-up question about certainty of response was included for all fixed-response items in order to evaluate the influence of guessing on response distributions. The test instrument was administered at the end of the third term to Grade 12 learners taking Physical science at three schools in privileged environments (1 English and 2 Afrikaans medium) and four township schools, and to all University of Pretoria Foundation Year (UPFY) students.

2017

The aim of this research was to explore the alternative conceptions about galvanic cells by both teachers and students. The achievement of students has been low in the galvanic cells questions over the past years which is of a great concern and had not been researched on, in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The main research question was: How can teachers’ and students’ alternative conceptions about galvanic cell in electrochemistry be addressed to improve students’ achievement? Research efforts had been on teaching strategies to address alternative conceptions about galvanic cells and no studies available to the researchers, have been reported on the latest alternative conceptions nor reported on how teachers had tried to address these alternative conceptions in recent times. Alternative conceptions about galvanic cells, teaching strategies and teaching approaches form part of the conceptual framework. Convergent mixed method with teachers’ and students’ questionnaires, teacher and studen...

Educación Química, 2014

Electrochemistry is an important topic in chemistry due to its wide application in everyday life. Although it is found in most high school curricula throughout the world, it is commonly regarded as an abstract and difficult topic to teach. This paper explores the teacher knowledge possessed by a diverse group of South African grade 12 teachers for teaching this topic. Two types of teacher knowledge were explored -knowledge of the content to be taught and topic specific pedagogical content knowledge. Topic specific content knowledge is the ability to reason about teaching the topic through 5 components regarded as important for the transformation of content knowledge, viz. Learner Prior Knowledge, Curricular Saliency, What is difficult to teach, Representations and Conceptual Teaching Strategies. 64 teachers responded to two instruments, measuring the two teacher knowledge bases. Results reflected the socio-diversity of the teachers with overall moderately high scores obtained on content knowledge which were not necessarily matched by good tspck. Reasons for this are explored.

International journal of interactive mobile technologies, 2024

The presence of an alternative framework in the students' minds acts as the main hindrance to students exhibiting profound understanding of scientific concepts, which in turn promotes the application of scientific knowledge to solve daily life context problems. This research is done in two phases. In the first phase, the research aims to identify the alternative framework among students on the concept of electrochemistry, and in the second phase, it develops an instructional module for secondary school students on the concept of electrochemistry by using the five-phase Needham constructivism model approach to overcome the alternative framework that exists in the students' minds. In this paper, however, only the findings of the first phase are reported. The instrument used for this study is the electrochemistry test developed based on previous research and validated by experts. This paper and pencil test is used in the first phase of the research as a data collection tool. This research adapted a quantitative research design. The data from the electrochemistry test is analyzed using statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS) 20.0 to get the descriptive data as findings of the first phase of the study. The findings of the first phase of this study indicate that the conceptualization level of students in electrochemistry is poor. Multiple alternative frameworks among students were identified from the analysis of the students' responses. This study contributed to existing literature by identifying the alternative frameworks present precisely in electrochemistry. The study recommends incorporating mobile technologies in the data collection process and in developing online instructional modules to be more accessible to educators throughout the country and to steer the chemistry education world to a higher level in the Malaysian education system. Enlightening the alternative framework existent in the students' knowledge schemata immensely facilitates educators worldwide in planning their instructional approach in the classroom for this specific scientific concept.