STUDENT TEACHERS’ PROBLEMS IN TEACHING ‘ELECTROLYSIS’ WITH A KEY DEMONSTRATION

Abstract

This study is concerned with student teachers’ conceptions about teaching the topic of electrolysis and difficulties they encounter. The aim of the study was also to find out how the student teachers understand the meaning of a key demonstration that would show the main features of the phenomenon. During this study eight chemistry student teachers were invited to write a lesson plan on the topic of electrolysis for lower secondary level, grade 8 pupils (age 14 to 15). The written lesson plans and the semi-structured interviews were collected and analysed by using a set of analytical categories. Only two of the eight student teachers had a clear view that electrolysis is a process where an electric current drives the reaction in a non-spontaneous direction. The role of the key demonstration was rather to attract interest than to activate thinking. Furthermore, the student teachers had difficulties to connect the previously taught concepts to electrolysis to form an integrated whole. The student teachers were concerned about their subject knowledge and they expressed their need to read more about the subject in order to be able to teach it properly, but only one was particularly worried whether her pupils would learn this topic. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. Eur.: 2002, 3, 317-326]