The effects of e-learning units on 13-14-year-old students’ misconceptions regarding some elementary chemical concepts Scientific paper

Abstract

Students’ misconceptions in science can lead to a range of learning difficulties if the teacher does not choose the appropriate teaching strategies to reduce their frequency. In this paper, 13-14-year-old students’ misconceptions regarding structure and states of matter, pure substances, and mixtures are explored. The teaching strategy with e-learning material was applied to examine its effects on the frequency of misconceptions. The research was conducted in urban schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina with 7th- and 8th-grade students. Findings pointed to the misconceptions originating in transferring the macro­scopic observations into the submicroscopic level and in misinterpretation of the size of particles. Students who used e-learning material at school mostly had lower percentages of misconceptions in comparison to students from the control group and students who accessed the same e-learning material from their home. This indicates that the e-learning strategy could have promising results if applied more extensively at schools. This study aims to direct teachers’ attention toward applying e-learning in chemistry teaching, for students to gain scientifically accepted knowledge and to reduce the occurrence of misconceptions.