Prev. Article Next Article Table of Contents

Article

A Comparison Study: Assessing Teachers' Conceptions with the Chemistry Concepts Inventory

Citing Articles

Your current credentials do not allow retrieval of the full text.

Purchase the full-text

PDF/HTML,
figures/images,
references and tables,
(where available)

Rebecca A. Kruse

Department of Chemistry and Physics, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, LA 70402

Gillian H. Roehrig

Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

J. Chem. Educ., 2005, 82 (8), p 1246

DOI: 10.1021/ed082p1246

Publication Date (Web): August 1, 2005

Section:

History, Education, and Documentation

Abstract

"Science as inquiry" is a key component of the National Science Education Standards. A deep conceptual understanding of chemistry is critical to the successful implementation of inquiry-based lessons. In this paper we report the results of a study to assess alternate conceptions of teachers in a large urban district—many of whom are teaching out-of-discipline—to further inform professional development activities related to the adoption of a reform-based chemistry curriculum. Teacher responses to the Chemistry Concepts Inventory were analyzed to assess alternate conceptions, and correlations were made to previously reported alternate conceptions of entering college students. The teachers scored higher than students on all items, however, the teachers' answers generally demonstrated a distribution similar to students of most commonly incorrect items and alternate conceptions, most of which involved translating between macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic representations. Potential origins and impacts of the teachers' alternate conceptions on teaching and student learning are discussed. This study reinforces the need for content-focused training toward the development of out-of-discipline chemistry teachers' conceptual understanding of chemistry, and specifically in making meaningful connections between observations of macroscopic phenomena and explanations at the particulate level.

Keywords (Audience):

High School / Introductory Chemistry

Keywords (Domain):

Chemical Education Research

Keywords (Feature):

Chemical Education Research

Keywords (Pedagogy):

Misconceptions / Discrepant Events

Keywords (Subject):

Descriptive Chemistry

View: Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links

Citing Articles

View all 1 citing articles

Citation data is made available by participants in CrossRef's Cited-by Linking service. For a more comprehensive list of citations to this article, users are encouraged to perform a search in SciFinder.

This article has been cited by 1 ACS Journal articles (1 most recent appear below).

Using Item Response Theory To Identify and Address Difficult Topics in General Chemistry
Kimberly D. SchurmeierCarrie G. SheplerGary J. LautenschlagerCharles H. Atwood
2011 (), 137-176
- Using Item Response Theory To Identify and Address Difficult Topics in General Chemistry
  Kimberly D. SchurmeierCarrie G. SheplerGary J. LautenschlagerCharles H. Atwood
  2011 (), 137-176
  We have employed the modern psychometric analysis tool Item Response Theory (IRT) to analyze the results of 10 years of computerized testing and final exam results on over 20,000 students. Our analysis indicates that there are 8 especially difficult ...
  Abstract | Full Text HTML | Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links