• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.477-487
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• 2007

Previous studies show that students have difficulties in understanding and using molecular visualization tools. This study focuses on the ways in which first year chemistry undergraduates use ball-and-stick molecular models to explain the concept of addition reaction and the difficulties that they face using the models. Video recordings of interviews with undergraduates manipulating ball-and-stick models to solve problems related to reaction mechanisms are analysed to determine if they are able to elucidate their understanding with use of models. The results showed that students have difficulties with viewing the ball-and-stick models from the proper perspective and understanding the relationship between the various structures that they have created using the models. They also find the use of ball-and-stick models tedious and prefer drawing molecular structures on paper to explain their ideas. Implications for the teaching using ball-and-stick molecular models are discussed.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.170-179
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• 2022

To find out the effect of interest on chemical content, interest in chemistry, choice of science elective subjects, teaching-learning characteristics that make it difficult to understand contents, academic achievement in general chemistry according to university admission screening, etc. were surveyed on 51 students enrolled in the department of chemistry education at P college of education. As a result of the survey, it was found that the interest in Chemistry I, Chemistry II, and general chemistry increased significantly to 94.6%, 73.7%, and 66.0%, respectively. 39.3% of the students answered that they had a lot of difficulty in understanding general chemistry. The characteristics of learners who make it difficult to understand the content were found to be 'lack of willingness to learn' such as 'lack of understanding chemical concepts' and 'lack of problem solving', due to the lack of 'basic knowledge'. As a way to solve these difficulties, 'expert help' appeared the most. The grades of general chemistry of students who entered the regular admission were relatively higher than those of occasional recruitment.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 2019

Currently, most of the science and engineering students who enter the university are required to take general chemistry and general chemistry experimental subjects. However they have different learning bases about learning basic science subjects. Regarding college entrance examinations, the current system is used for selection, so they have different levels of basic knowledge. But, without considering this situation, all of the students in science and engineering are participating in the same basic science class, some learners are relatively easy to adapt to learning, while others experience extreme difficulties and suddenly give up. This is true. The purpose of this study is to develop a scale to measure the ability to learn general chemistry of freshmen in science and engineering at H University in the Seoul Metropolitan area and to analyze what kind of learning backgrounds are related to learners. The results show that gender and major are not related to general chemistry learning major, and it we found that there is a close relationship to the relationship between their major and chemistry, the level of the chemistry learning in the high school, and the selection of chemistry in college entrance examinations. In addition, it was found that the degree of feeling that pre-learning is beneficial to current learning and that it is common with current learning is also a factor related to general chemistry learning aptitude. Therefore, in this study, we propose two ways of presenting and promoting a guide for learning by majors, and establishing a step-by-step learning system considering the level of students.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.447-458
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to explore high school teacher's and students' perceptions of learning difficulties of the ‘chemical bond' unit of the Chemistry II in the 7th national curriculum. The participants in this study were consisted of a teacher and his students(85) from the Chemistry II classrooms: they all answered to the questionnaire, and then some students and the teacher were interviewed individually. The results showed that there were big differences between the teacher's and his students' perceptions of 1) the most difficult unit for understanding; 2) concepts they learned; and 3) the most difficult concept for understanding in the classroom. Students thought that electro-negativity unit was the most difficult to understand while teacher thought molecular structure unit was the hardest unit to teach. And teacher taught all 32 subjects of chemical bond unit to students, but some students could not remember they learned all of them. Most difficult parts for students to understand were ‘Coulomb force' and ‘dipole moment', while the most difficult part for the teacher to teach was ‘the conceptual difference between atomic bond and intermolecular force'. The reasons caused the students' learning difficulties were analyzed and discussed based on the interview data, and then further study was presented.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.137-143
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• 2012

This study analyzed the questions posted on the chemistry Q&A board by students and teachers in a chemistry education homepage, in order to understand the difficulties in learning and teaching chemistry. The different tendencies were found in the contents and the motivations of questions by students and teachers. In Chemistry I, students raised many questions in the 'Water' unit, while teachers raised many ones in the 'Chemical compound in our life' unit. In Chemistry II, students asked many questions in the 'Gas, liquid, solid' unit, while teachers did in 'Chemical reaction and energy' unit. Students' motivations of questioning were 'Explanation of unclear concept', and 'Problem solving', while teachers' motivations were 'Searching information', and 'Question in experiment'. The Q&A board provided a field in exchanging informations needed in learning and teaching chemistry. Educational implications were discussed on the use of Q&A board in chemistry education.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.210-220
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• 2023

We analyzed and compared factors such as changes in the degree of difficulty of concepts presented in Chemistry I textbook, changes in class types (non-face-to-face, face-to-face), etc. on academic achievement by level (upper, middle, and lower). Students from A high school in Gyeongsangnam-do were selected for the subjects of the study. As a result of analyzing the change in the degree of difficulty of concepts, the total score of chemistry I combined by non-face-to-face and face-to-face classes during the second semester was lower than that of the first semester. As a result of analyzing the impact of factors such as changes in conceptual difficulty, changes in class types, etc. on academic achievement by level, students' grades at the 'lower level' by non-face-to-face classes were lower than those by face-to-face classes. In particular, at the lower level of the second semester, there was a large difference in grades between non-face-to-face and face-to-face classes. In the results of these studies, it was found that instructors' active feedback is important to identify difficulties in understanding learning contents for students with low levels of academic achievement and improve them at the same time.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 1997

The purpose of this study was to determine the strategies that middle school students used in solving problems concerning density and solubility. These were compared in the aspects of problem contexts for 42 students of varying logical reasoning ability, spatial ability, and learning approach. A coding scheme used consists of five categories: reading & organization, production, errors, evaluation, and strategy. Students' protocols were analyzed after intercoder agreement had been established to be .95. The results were as follows: 1. Students had more difficulties in reading and organizing the problems in everyday contexts than in scientific contexts. Students at the concrete-operational stage and / or surface approach were more likely to have difficulties in reading and organizing the problems than those at the formal-operational stage and / or deep approach. 2. Students tended to split up the solubility problems into sub-problems and to solve the density problem in everyday contexts in random manner. These were significantly correlated with the test scores concerning logical reasoning ability, spatial ability, and learning approach at the .1 level of significance. 3. Major errors in solving the density problems were to disregard the given information or generated and to use inappropriate information. Many errors in solving the solubility problems were found to be executive errors. The strategy to use the information given appropriately was positively related to students' logical reasoning ability, spatial ability, and learning approach. 4. More evaluation strategies were found in everyday contexts. Their strategies to grasp the meaning of answers and to check the math were significantly related to students' logical reasoning ability. 5. Students used the random trial-and-error strategy more than the systematic strategy and the systematic trial-and-error strategy, especially in everyday contexts. The strategies used by the students were significantly related to students' logical reasoning ability, spatial ability, and learning approach.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.432-444
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• 2009

In this study, we investigated the perceptions and the educational needs of pre-service primary and secondary teachers on cooperative learning in science. The survey was administered to 102 seniors at the department of science education in three universities of education and 64 seniors at the department of chemistry education in three colleges of education. The results revealed that the pre-service primary and secondary teachers learned the theories and experienced the practices on cooperative learning through various methods in the several subjects, and especially had many difficulties in appling cooperative learning to the demonstrations and/or the actual science classes. The degree of their understanding on cooperative learning was comparatively high, and the perceptions on the advantage/disadvantage of cooperative learning in science, the willingness practicing it, and the outside aids influencing on implementing it were relatively positive. They highly perceived on the necessities of diverse educations related on cooperative learning in science in pre-service teacher education processes. The willingness implementing cooperative learning in science class was significantly correlated with the necessities of diverse educations. These were also significantly correlated with the perceptions on the advantage/disadvantage of cooperative learning in science, the educational assessments on the advantage/disadvantage of it, and the educational assessments on the outside aids influencing on implementing it, respectively. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.3-15
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• 2019

In this study, we analyzed professors' performance of teaching in college of science and engineering from the perspective of the CHAT. Two professors volunteered to participate in this study. Their syllabi were collected before the lectures, and their lectures were observed and videotaped. Semi-structured interviews were conducted before and after their lectures. The CHAT components were classified into 'subjects', 'objects', 'rules', 'communities', 'division of labor', and 'tools'. We extracted the content of six CHAT components from the data and constructed the analysis framework based on the extracted contents. The analyses of the results revealed that both professors had difficulties due to the contradictions among the components of subject, object, rules, and community in the activity system. Both professors used various strategies to relieve the contradiction related to students' ability, such as inviting students to participate in their lecture. However the extent of providing opportunities to students to participate was different between two professors. Meanwhile, both professors preferred to continue their own strategies, because they observed positive changes in students' learning. In other words, the success experiences of two professors influenced their performances of teaching. We discussed some suggestions to improve the quality of the lecture in the college of science and engineering.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2006

Students have often experienced difficulties in understanding the concept of the particulate nature of matter despite its importance in chemistry. Although various instructional methods have been suggested for teaching this concept, systematic studies have been rarely conducted. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of drawing and analyzing pictures. Three classes of 7th graders at a coed middle school in Seoul were assigned to the control group, the drawing group, and the analyzing group, respectively. Students were taught about the three states of matter and the motion of molecules for 8 class periods. The instructional effects on student conception, achievement, and science learning motivation were investigated by student visual learning styles. Results revealed that the scores of a conceptions test and a science learning motivation test for both the drawing group and the analyzing group were higher than those for the control group. Additionally, the scores of the science learning motivation test were also found to be higher for students with a more visual learning style than their counterparts.