A cross-cultural study of CKCM efficacy in an undergraduate chemistry classroom

Abstract

The aim of this study was to cross-culturally investigate the instructional efficacy of the Common Knowledge Construction Model (CKCM) with college students learning about ‘factors affecting solubility’ focusing on students’ conceptual understanding, attitudes and scientific habits of mind. Even though the CKCM is a decade old, there has been little study of its effectiveness in different cultural contexts, which is unfortunate because having effective studies from different cultural contexts can increase the strength of generalization. In order to add to the cultural context variation in which the CKCM has been studied, the study reported in this paper investigated the effectiveness of a CKCM undergraduate chemistry unit taught in Turkey and the USA for pre-service teachers. The study was quasi-experimental with the CKCM and country as the independent variables; and conceptual understanding, scientific habits of mind and attitudes towards chemistry as the dependent variables. Data were collected using a pre/post-test administration of the Factors Affecting Solubility Test (FAST), the Scientific Habits of Mind (SHOM) survey, and the Chemistry Attitudes and Experiences Scale (CAES). The data were analyzed using an independent samples t-test, paired samples t-test, and ANCOVA. Statistically significant differences were found between contexts, generally favoring the Turkish pre-service teachers. This is an interesting result in that the findings of the study suggest that the CKCM may be more effective in its adapted setting than in its original (American) setting.