Education Quarterly Reviews
ISSN 2621-5799
Published: 30 April 2021
Assessment of Awareness of Chemistry Concepts with Thesaurus Task: 9th Grade Vocational High School Students Sample
Nuray Zan, Burcu Umut Zan
Çankırı Karatekin University, Turkey
Download Full-Text Pdf
10.31014/aior.1993.04.02.249
Pages: 323-338
Keywords: Chemistry Education, Chemistry Concepts, 9th Grade, Key Concept, Glossary, Thesaurus
Abstract
The study was conducted at a vocational high school in Ankara during the academic year of 2018-2019 based on the key concepts regarding the units in the chemistry curriculum for 9th grade. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether 9th grade students recognized the key concepts in chemistry units of first and second semester, and how correct their relevant definitions were. In the first unit, 9 students could determine a sufficient number of key concepts; however, in the proceeding units, the number decreased, and none of the students were able to recognize the correct concepts in the last unit. Another important finding of the study was that students included high-level concepts in their dictionaries even though they had difficulty in identifying the basic key concepts offered in the curriculum. It revealed that students attempted to explain unrecognized concepts through an unfamiliar terminology. Accordingly, it was inferred from the data obtained that students entered into chemistry with fundamental conceptual deficiencies. When concept-related definitions in student thesauruses were examined, it was revealed that the majority could make scientific explanations and choose their resources correctly; nonetheless, a small number of students could not make sufficient descriptions or used expressions far from scientific explanations. One of the important aspects of this study is that, teachers need to give the key concepts to students in detail first, and demonstrate in practice how to look up their explanations in the right resources. This constitutes the main scientific background of our study.
References
Bayram, H., Sokmen, N. & Gurdal, A. (1998). Identifying the comprehension levels of basic science concepts in primary school 5th and 8th grade students, IV. National Primary School Teaching Symposium, Pamukkale. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/maruaebd/issue/380/2476
Cantu, L.R. and Herron, J. (1978). Concrete and formal Piagetian stages and science concept attainment, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 15, 135143, (1978). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ185566
Chainikova, G. R., Zatonskiy, A. V., Mitiukov, N. W., & Busygina, H. L. (2018). Development of Foreign Language Lexical Competence on the Basis of a Learner's Terminological Thesaurus and Dictionary. European Journal of Contemporary Education, 7(1), 51-59. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1172939
Griggs, R. A., Bujak-Johnson, A., & Proctor, D. L. (2004). Using common core vocabulary in text selection and teaching the introductory course. Teaching of Psychology, 31(4), 265-269.
J Novak, J. D., & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them. Technical Report IHMC CmapTools, Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. https://skat.ihmc.us/rid=1PNKH5H33-180H60B-2FQ/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pdf
Karaduz, A., & Yildirim, I. (2011). Opinions and Applications of Teachers to Improve Vocabulary. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, 10(2). http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=61077174&lang=tr&site=ehost-live
Keränen, S. (2005). Multicultural thesaurus construction: homemakers in Finnish and British discourses. In La dimensió humana de l'organització del coneixement (pp. 357-379). Facultat de Biblioteconomia i Documentació.
Marck, E.A. (1986). Understanding and misunderstanding of biology concepts, The American Biology Teacher, 48 (1), 37-40.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Sage.
Milic, M., Glusac, T., & Kardos, A. (2018). The effectiveness of using dictionaries as an aid for teaching standardization of English-based sports terms in Serbian. Lexikos, 28, 262-286.
Miller, J. (2009). Teaching refugee learners with interrupted education in science: Vocabulary, literacy and pedagogy. International Journal of Science Education, 31(4), 571-592. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690701744611
Nadiya, D. (2011). Marine engineering terms: linguistic analysis for educational purposes. Journal of Marine Technology & Environment, 2. p37-42
Nakhleh, M.B. (1992). Why Some Student Don't Learn Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Education, 69 (3),191-196. https://doi.org/10.1021/ed069p191
Raud, Z., & Vodovozov, V. (2012). Flexible curricula based on educational thesaurus. In 15th IASTED International Conference on Computers and Advanced Technology in Education CATE 2012 (pp. 219-226).
Raud, Z., Vodovozov, V., & Lehtla, T. (2012). Educational thesaurus for learning electronics. In 3rd World Conference on Education and Educational Technologies WORLD-EDU 2012 (pp. 67-72). www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2012/Vouliagmeni/EDUCIT/EDUCIT-09.pdf
Raud, Z., Vodovozov, V., & Lehtla, T. (2013). Concept maps in Power Electronics education. In 2013 International Conference-Workshop Compatibility And Power Electronics (pp. 280-285). EEE. https://doi: 10.1109/CPE.2013.6601170.
Sisson, P. W., & Ryan, J. J. C. H. (2015). What Do We Know?—Building A Knowledge Concept Map. In Proc. 16th European Conference on Knowledge Management—ECKM (pp. 1-7).
The Ministry of National Education Commission. (2018). Chemistry Course Book, Ankara
Yıldırım, A. (1996). Disiplinlerarası öğretim kavramı ve programlar açısından doğurduğu sonuçlar.Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 12(12). https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/88151