• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.345-353
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of mental capacity and understanding of the oxi-dation-reduction concepts on the completion of the balancing redox equations. Participants were 92 senior high school students and 57 science high school students. Tests were conducted to measure the mental capacity, the understanding of the oxidation-reduction concepts and the completion of the balancing redox equations and the influence on the per-formance was analyzed. The performance of the senior high school students increased as the mental capacity increased, but the performance of science high school students did not change by mental capacity. Most of senior high school stu-dents couldn't understand the oxidation-reduction concepts well. Most of science high school students, however, under-stood the concepts completely and partially. The students who had a good understanding of the oxidation-reduction concepts showed a good performance for both senior and science high school students, regardless of the problem pattern.