Preservice chemistry teachers in action: an evaluation of attempts for changing high school students' chemistry misconceptions into more scientific conceptions

Abstract

Previous research has revealed that students may hold several misconceptions regarding fundamental topics of chemistry. With the idea that teachers play a critical role in diagnosis and remediation of students' misconceptions, a “course” for preservice chemistry teachers was designed. The purpose of this study was to describe the views and understandings of preservice chemistry teachers on issues related to nature, diagnosis and remediation of misconceptions in the aftermath of this specially designed “course”. This course placed the collaborative, active and reflective practices of preservice teachers at its center. The data sources were self-reflection reports written by preservice teachers at the end of the “course” and high school students' answers to questions regarding some misconceptions after preservice teachers applied their lessons to these students. Results showed that the majority of the participating preservice teachers realized the importance and variety of misconceptions, as well as ways of dealing with them. Also, there is satisfying evidence that many of the high school students' misconceptions changed after the applied lessons.

---

Introduction

Many students find chemistry difficult due to the abstract nature of its concepts. Past research has shown that students' conceptions are often inconsistent with the scientific conceptions they are expected to learn (Driver, 1989; Gilbert et al., 1982; Taber, 2002). In different studies, these conceptions were referred to as preconceptions (Ausubel, 1968), misconceptions (Novak, 1988), naive conceptions (Caramaza et al., 1981), children's science (Gilbert et al., 1982), and alternative conceptions (Gilbert and Swift, 1985; Taber, 2002). Whichever term is used, all of these, to a greater or lesser extent, imply a similar idea: a conceptualization that is somewhat different from the scientifically accepted one. Although students often bring to instruction their own informal knowledge formed as a result of daily life experiences, the research literature suggests that most of the alternative conceptions form due to curriculum decisions, pedagogical practices, use of language, and the abstract and symbolic nature of concepts in chemistry.

There is an extensive body of research about misconceptions in chemistry. Some of this research has identified and described student misconceptions regarding different topics of chemistry (Adadan et al., 2010; Çakmakçı, 2010; Nakhleh et al., 2005; Peterson et al., 1989; Pınarbaşı and Canpolat, 2003; Ross and Munby, 1991; Stavy, 1988; Talanquer, 2009; Yang et al., 2004; among many others). Some studies focused on college/university students (Bodner, 1991; Cros et al., 1988; Dhindsa and Treagust, 2009; Erdemir et al., 2000; Kelly et al., 2010; Kozma et al., 1990), preservice teachers (Jarvis et al., 2005; Nakiboğlu, 2003; Tan and Taber, 2009), or inservice teachers (Banerjee, 1991; Kruse and Roehrig, 2005). Findings of these studies show that people of various ages and schooling levels might have misconceptions which are different to some extent from the scientifically accepted conceptions.

Theoretical framework

Critical role of teachers in coping with students' misconceptions

The research into students' misconceptions indicates that they are strongly held, very resistant to change, and can influence subsequent learning (Novak, 1988; Nussbaum and Novick, 1982). A teacher's knowledge of subject matter may increase or limit the opportunities provided to students to learn that subject (McDiarmid et al., 1989; cited in Gabel, 1994). In other words, teachers' subject matter knowledge critically influences their curriculum and pedagogical decisions (Grossman et al., 1989; Hashweh, 1987; cited in Gabel, 1994). According to Shulman (1987), to be able to teach all students with respect to changing demands, teachers need to hold deep conceptual understandings of the subject matter; only thus can they address students' alternative conceptions and help students have meaningful conceptual understandings. In addition to four general categories, Shulman (1986) proposes three content-specific categories of teacher knowledge: content knowledge, curriculum knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Shulman defines pedagogical content knowledge as ‘the most useful ways of representing the subject that make it comprehensible to others; and an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult’ (p. 9). Drawing on Shulman's work (1986, 1987) on pedagogical content knowledge, Ball et al. (2008) describe the domains of knowledge needed to teach mathematics to students. One of them is ‘knowledge of content and students which necessitates a familiarity with common student errors and deciding which of several errors students are most likely to make’ (Ball et al., 2008, p. 401).

As Allen (2010) states, ‘if teachers are unaware of the variety of misconceptions that are associated with a particular concept, they might overlook them, especially if the misconception is closely aligned with the scientific conception, in other words nearly right, but not completely’ (p. 11). On the other hand, there are many studies in the literature pointing out that preservice teachers held misconceptions in various chemistry concepts, such as particulate nature of matter (Gabel et al., 1987; Ginns and Watters, 1995; Jarvis et al., 2005; Valanides, 2000), evaporation and vapor pressure (Canpolat, 2006), solution chemistry (Calik et al., 2007; Ozden, 2009) and ionization energy (Tan and Taber, 2009). Yezierski and Birk (2006) emphasize the importance of training teachers to determine students' misconceptions and to design interventions, but this can be possible if and only if preservice teachers have a good content knowledge and their misconceptions are extremely limited.

Responsibility of teachers in diagnosis and remediation of misconceptions

Considerable information is now available about the misconceptions of students regarding a variety of topics in chemistry, and it is possible to draw some conclusions about improving chemistry teaching. Since some of these misconceptions result from pedagogical practices, their development could be prevented with carefully constructed instruction. An awareness of these conceptions helps teachers in the process of curriculum selection and sequencing, and in their job of guiding students in the construction of conceptions which are more in line with those held by the scientific community (Garnett et al., 1995), but Gomez-Zwiep (2008, p. 438) indicates that ‘preservice and novice teachers are often unaware that their students may have misconceptions’ according to the findings of a limited number of research studies (Berg and Brouwer, 1991; Halim and Meerah, 2002; Smith and Neale, 1991) in this field.

So, it is important to help teachers become aware of common students' misconceptions and to recommend ways for teachers to change these ideas into scientifically acceptable ones. Once teachers have an awareness of the misconceptions that they might encounter while teaching a particular topic, they will be better equipped to recognize them. Teachers must actively search for misconceptions by introducing activities specially designed to reveal them (Allen, 2010). Actively searching for misconceptions and designing activities to correct them necessitates extra effort and practice with these issues, but the findings of some studies (Gomez-Zwiep, 2008; Halim and Meerah, 2002) indicate that this was seldom done in chemistry classrooms and teacher education programs.

To sum up, as Garnett et al. (1995) suggest, classroom practice needs to include discourse relating to students' conceptions and the ongoing identification of students' alternative conceptions, appropriate intervention strategies, the encouragement of students' reflection on their understandings, and the provision of opportunities for students to experience chemistry at the macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic levels. Preservice teachers should be introduced to knowing, practicing, and internalizing the skills to be able to create such a classroom environment. This might be only achieved through having such a classroom environment in teacher education programs, and that is what the “course” designed for the present study aims to do.

The importance of “doing”/“experiencing” in learning and teacher education

People often learn better while they are performing hands-on tasks. A constructivist approach usually supports any way of experiencing where, instead of being given a list of instructions to follow, individuals are given some freedom to plan and perform practical activities (Allen, 2010). Experiential learning assumes that making discoveries and experimenting with knowledge puts students at the heart of learning (Ingwalson, 2010). Goodlad (1984; cited in Ingwalson, 2010) supports John Dewey's view that individuals construct knowledge through direct experience, that is to say, learn through action and reflection. Intellectual and cognitive development is best promoted through active, engaging learning (NMSA, 2010). Zemelman et al. (1998, p. 8) underline that ‘students learn most powerfully from doing, not just hearing about a subject’. All of these quotations point out the importance of experience and active involvement in the learning process.

From a similar perspective, an effective teacher education program should integrate the subject matter, theoretical knowledge about learning, and research on effective practice and relevant experiences. We should not be so optimistic as to expect significant behavioral changes in preservice teachers to result from short, verbal and highly abstract instances of instruction (Penick and Yager, 1988). To develop teaching behaviors that promote conceptual change and remediation of misconceptions, preservice teachers must do more than study or talk about them; they also must practice these teaching skills (Penick and Yager) and need to be engaged in serious reflection on how to use that “know how” for transforming the content, in planning for instruction (Halim and Meerah, 2002). In the present study, it was aimed to form such a learning environment for preservice chemistry teachers, and emphasized that they are expected to form such an environment in their own classrooms.

Ogborn (2002) discusses that some professional development efforts with inservice teachers owe much of their success to the way in which researchers worked in partnership with teachers to provide a sense of ownership and value through participation in the development process. Similarly, Fullan (2001) claims that most people do not develop a new understanding until they are involved in the process. Drawing upon these ideas, in the present study, the researcher tried to incorporate preservice teachers in the development process and hoped for them to feel a sense of ownership of the products (lesson plans).

Context and significance of the study

In the light of the aforementioned research literature, a research project was initiated. The overall purpose of that project was “to attract preservice chemistry teachers' attention to commonly held misconceptions in chemistry and to help them develop the knowledge and skills necessary to identify and/or correct these misconceptions”. This project spanned two years and was composed of three independent phases, each serving different preservice teacher groups. The first and second phases of the project were planned as a preparation for the third phase, and no data were collected throughout those phases. In the 1st phase, the focus was on making participating preservice teachers aware of commonly held misconceptions in chemistry and training them on how to diagnose these misconceptions (developing diagnostic questions only). The main focus of the 2nd phase was helping participating preservice teachers (only) with how to plan instructional activities for the remediation of chemistry misconceptions. And lastly the main focus of the 3rd phase was guiding preservice chemistry teachers in designing both their own diagnostic questions and lesson plans targeting some commonly held chemistry misconceptions for high school students, and to cause them to think of their lessons' effectiveness by applying them in real classrooms. In each phase, the researcher worked with different preservice teacher groups.

In this paper, as a component of this large scale project, the results of a particular “course” offered during the third phase of the project were reported. During this phase of the project, the participants, with the coaching of the instructor, read, discussed and interacted with each other, designed and modified lesson plans, applied them in actual settings, evaluated their effectiveness, and reflected on them. By going through such a procedure, the participants were intended to appreciate the importance and complexity of this issue in teaching and to develop a repertoire of ways to identify and change students' chemistry misconceptions.

There might be several courses attaching importance to collaboration and practice in many teacher education programs all over the world, but the “course” described in this study tried to provide active learning opportunities along with collaborative work for preservice teachers in a systematic and organized way for dealing mainly with chemistry misconceptions in its own integrity. The design of the “course” also allowed the researcher to deduce information about the transferability of the preservice teachers' learnings to their teaching practices. These two aspects of this study differentiate it from other studies in the literature and make it unique. It was thought that such courses do not only improve preservice teachers' subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, but also form a model for their lessons in their future teaching careers.

Purpose and research questions

The purpose of this study is to describe the views and understandings of preservice chemistry teachers on issues related to nature, diagnosis and remediation of misconceptions in the aftermath of a specially designed “course”. Two main research questions guided this study:

(1) What are the reflections of preservice chemistry teachers on issues related to nature, diagnosis and remediation of selected chemistry misconceptions after completing a course focusing on misconceptions in chemistry?

(2) How effective are the lessons designed by preservice chemistry teachers (during this course) in changing high school students' chemistry misconceptions?

Methods

Participants

The participants in this study were 22 senior undergraduate students (12 male and 10 female) registered to a course offered by the researcher. These students were in a “Chemistry Teaching” program and preparing to become high school chemistry teachers (for grades 9 to 12). Previously, they had completed most of their courses on subject matter (chemistry) and pedagogy (learning theories, teaching methods, educational psychology, classroom management, material development, etc.). During the “course”, participants worked on the design of lesson plans with the aim of changing high school students' chemistry misconceptions selected from the literature. The assignment of misconceptions to each preservice teacher was done randomly (see Table 1).

Table 1 Misconceptions worked on by participants

No.	Misconception worked on	No. of participants
a M: Male; b F: Female.
1	A molecule is heavy enough to be weighed	S1(M^a)
2	Atoms and molecules have macroscopic properties; e.g., they expand when a substance is heated	S2(F^b), S3(M)
3	Gases have less mass (or weight) than their solid forms	S4(F), S5(M), S6(M)
4	Equal sharing of electron pairs occurs in all covalent bonds	S7(F), S8(F)
5	Subscripts in a formula are numbers used merely to balance equations and do not represent atomic groupings	S9(M), S10(M)
6	In reversible chemical reactions, the forward reaction is completed before the reverse reaction starts	S11(F), S12(M)
7	When chemical equilibrium is reached, the concentration of products is equal to the concentration of reactants	S13(M), S14(M)
8	Chemical equilibrium is a static process	S15(F), S16(F), S17(M)
9	The strength and concentration of an acid (or a base) are the same thing	S18(F), S19(M), S20(F)
10	Oxidation and reduction processes can occur independently	S21(M)
11	In galvanic cells, the left hand side is always anode and the right hand side is always cathode	S22(F)
		n = 22

---

Course content, organization and procedure

At the first meeting of the “course”, it was emphasized that it requires active participation and collaboration of all class members. In the subsequent four weeks, participants attended a series of course meetings (two hours per week) which consisted of discussions on assigned readings (see Appendix A, ESI†) about nature and kinds of chemistry misconceptions, sources of and reasons for misconceptions, diagnostic tools for the identification of misconceptions, various conceptual change strategies for remediating misconceptions, and use and importance of simulations/animations in connecting three representational levels in chemistry. At the end of these preparatory lessons, the “Predict-Observe-Explain” (POE) instructional strategy developed by White and Gunstone (1992), was chosen as the guiding framework for designing the lesson plans mainly because of its simplicity and ease of use. Most of the participants found it “easy to understand” and “easy to apply”. Another reason was that by using POE, it was possible to plan 40 min long lessons for dealing with high school students' chemistry misconceptions. This strategy ‘probes understanding by requiring students to carry out three tasks. First they must predict the outcome of some event, and must justify their prediction; then they describe what they see happen; and finally they must reconcile any conflict between prediction and observation’ as indicated by White and Gunstone (p. 44). This strategy ‘provides teachers a way to elicit students’ alternative conceptions related to a particular concept, allows students to discover why these conceptions are inadequate, present a new explanation supported by evidence, and show them why the new explanation is more useful’ (Dial et al., 2009, p. 54).

Then, participants began to work on designing their own lesson plans targeting assigned chemistry misconceptions for the subsequent weeks. While preservice teachers were designing their lesson plans, they were working cooperatively (sharing what they had thought and designed during the week in terms of diagnostic questions and instructional activities with their classmates and instructor; discussing pros and cons of using any diagnostic question and/or instructional activity; giving and taking feedback to/from each other systematically) during course lesson hours, but generally working individually outside of course lesson hours. Apart from course lesson hours (two hours per week), extra one hour per week was devoted as an office hour by the instructor to respond the participants’ additional questions. To sum up, participants worked both individually and cooperatively during the designing period, and they were systematically supervised by the instructor throughout these 8 weeks. At the end of this procedure, 22 different lesson plans were prepared.

After they finished their own work (at the end of 8th week), one by one, they presented their draft lesson plans to the rest of the class. These presentations gave opportunities for preservice teachers to discuss their own lesson plans with each other and receive feedback, and served as a rehearsal and piloting before the actual implementation. Discussions after each presentation were very important, because through listening to others’ ideas and perspectives, each individual preservice teacher had an opportunity to reshape his or her own lesson plans. Throughout these presentations, the researcher provided advice about how to modify and improve the draft lesson plans. In other words, the researcher coached and supported preservice teachers in the development of their lesson plans. The aim was to facilitate teacher development through encouraging preservice teachers to take ownership by designing their own activities (Ogborn, 2002) and lessons. The collaborative efforts of preservice teachers at the end of twelve weeks have resulted in the production of their own lesson plans that are ready to be used.

Since participants were also taking a practicum course during that semester, they were asked to teach their lesson plans in actual classrooms. The target classrooms were selected among grades 11 or 12 (accommodating 17–18 year old students) to ensure that the students in these classrooms had already learned the concepts investigated in this study in their previous classes. All the participating students in this sample had taken chemistry courses since 9th grade and the chemistry curriculum that they were exposed to is very typical compared to any other chemistry curriculum worldwide. The total number of high school students being taught in these lessons was around 300. The lessons were applied in nine different schools and 22 different classrooms which were the official training placements of participants. The number of students in each classroom ranged from 10 to 30 and the schools differed in terms of popularity and quality. The researcher either observed each applied lesson directly at the classroom or watched video recordings of them later to ensure that similar practices were applied by each preservice teacher.

Design of the study

This study used a “one-shot case study” design (Campbell and Stanley, 1963). In this study, there was no control group and no formal measurement before the course, but there were reasons for conducting the study in this way. Since the intervention of this study was the course offered by the researcher, all of the students registered to this course were exposed to the intervention. There was no legitimate way to separate some students as control group students. On the other hand, although a formal pre-measurement was not conducted before the course, in the first course meeting a whole class discussion was carried out with participants to understand what and how much they knew about misconceptions. This informal discussion showed that participants generally could provide an appropriate definition of the term “misconception” and give a few science/chemistry misconception examples, but could not propose adequate strategies for diagnosing and changing students’ misconceptions. This informal conversation gave the researcher an idea of the entry level knowledge of the participants regarding misconceptions. The main purpose of this study was neither to compare this instructional sequence with any other instructional sequence, nor to conclude about its effectiveness, but to understand and describe the views and understandings of the participants on issues related to nature, diagnosis and remediation of chemistry misconceptions in the aftermath of this particular “course” and give ideas and insights to teacher educators in light of these findings.

Data sources, collection, and data analysis

In this study, data were collected from both high school students (n ∼ 300) and the preservice teachers (n = 22) who taught to these target high school students. One data source was self-reflection reports written by preservice teachers at the end of the semester. While writing these reports, apart from other reflections, the researcher specially requested them to respond to three specific questions below and include these responses in their reports. These written responses were used to understand the views and understandings of preservice teachers regarding chemistry misconceptions after completing the course.

(Q1) What are the most important things that you learned about nature of misconceptions during this course?

(Q2) Did you come up with a lesson plan that satisfied you? Do you think that it was effective enough to change the students’ misconception that you worked on? If you think that it wasn't effective enough, what were the problems with it?

(Q3) Did you notice that you had any science/chemistry misconceptions before taking this course, that you corrected during the course? If yes, what were they?

In order to answer the first research question, the responses in the reflection reports given to the three questions indicated above were analyzed inductively using a “bottom-up” approach (Creswell, 2005). In this approach, first, the researcher familiarized herself with the data by reading the answers to each question over and over again. After several readings, some categories began to appear. Next, sections of the writings that reflected identified categories were coded by the researcher. To ensure reliability of the coding, another science educator also coded the writings independently according to the categories determined by the researcher. The researcher and the second person then shared the results of the coding, and a few discrepancies were resolved via discussion. At the end of these discussions, some categories were merged into a single category and some were divided into two.

The other data source was high school students' responses to diagnostic questions prepared by participating preservice teachers. Each preservice teacher prepared his or her own questions to diagnose students' misconceptions on the assigned concept and posed these questions to target high school students, before and after their lessons. This data were used to analyze the contribution of this “course” to preservice teachers' success in changing the high school students' misconceptions. The prepared questions were generally multiple-choice (but required reasoning about the choice) or open-ended conceptual questions. While preparing the questions, each preservice teacher discussed them with both the classmates and the instructor and modified them if necessary. Content validity and accuracy of the questions were checked by the researcher. Some sample questions prepared by participating preservice teachers are presented in Appendix B, ESI.† This data source was valuable to be able to conclude whether preservice teachers could transfer their understandings to performance. As an integral part of the course, each preservice teacher evaluated high school students' responses to these questions (pre and post), so that they had a chance to think about their own lessons.

On the other hand, apart from preservice teachers' own evaluations, to be able to answer the second research question, the researcher evaluated all of the high school students' responses and organized this data using the procedure below: First, student answers were categorized as reflecting “scientific conceptions”, “partially scientific conceptions”, or “misconceptions”, then these were counted. And at the end, the percentage of improvement from pre to post measurement in favor of “scientific conception” was calculated for each preservice teacher's lesson, one by one. The lessons for which improvement was greater than 60% were labeled as “highly effective” (HE); improvement between 25% and 60% was labeled as “partially effective” (PE), and improvement smaller than 25% was labeled as “not so effective” (NSE) (see Table 5).

Results

Reflections of preservice chemistry teachers on issues related to nature, diagnosis and remediation of selected chemistry misconceptions after completing the specially designed “course”

The responses in the reflection reports given to the three questions indicated before were analyzed and the number of participants whose data fell into each category described in “data sources, collection, and data analysis” section was counted and summarized as shown in Tables 2–4. (Some exemplary quotations can be found in Appendix C, ESI.†)

Table 2 Characteristics of misconceptions mentioned by participants

No.	Categories of responses	No. of participants
1	They are very resistant to change	10
2	They are very hard to eliminate and require special effort	9
3	Teachers need to use special strategies to eliminate misconceptions	8
4	They influence further learning negatively	5
5	Several different misconceptions may exist	3
6	They are deeply rooted	3
7	They make sense for the students	3
8	They are hidden	2
9	They are like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger if not corrected	1

---

Table 3 Problems perceived by the participants as a reason for their ineffective lesson

No.	Categories of responses	No. of participants
1	Inadequate explanations/elaborations were provided by me	5
2	Most of the students were not familiar with the prerequisite knowledge and/or skills needed to grasp the content worked on	5
3	There was not enough time to cover what I had planned	3
4	Classroom management was a problem for me	3
5	Most of the students didn't hold the misconception assigned to me before the lesson	2
6	The quality of the animations that I used was not good enough	1
7	The use of a real demonstration would have been better than use of an animation	1
8	It wasn't a good lesson plan	1
9	The misconception assigned to me was hard to eliminate	1
10	Students were not motivated enough for the lesson	1

---

Table 4 Misconceptions and number of participants holding them before taking the course

No.	The misconception held by participants	No. of participants
1	The strength and concentration of an acid (or a base) is the same thing	6
2	Atoms and molecules have macroscopic properties; e.g., they expand when a substance is heated	5
3	Chemical equilibrium is a static process	4
4	When chemical equilibrium is reached, the concentration of products is equal to the concentration of reactants	3
5	In reversible chemical reactions, the forward reaction is completed before the reverse reaction starts	1
6	Subscripts in a formula are numbers used merely to balance equations and do not represent atomic groupings	1

---

The first question was: “What are the most important things that you learned about nature of misconceptions during this course?”

Participants generally responded to this question by giving one or more characteristics of misconceptions, such as their resistance to change, their variety, the difficulty of identifying and eliminating them, the need to pay special attention to them, etc. In all, nine different categories related to characteristics of misconceptions emerged from the written responses.

The highlighted feature of misconceptions mostly mentioned by participants was “their resistance to change” (n = 10). The second most stated characteristic was “the difficulty in coping with them” (n = 9).

The second question was: “Do you think that you came up with a lesson plan that was effective enough to change the students' misconception that you worked on? If you think that it wasn't effective enough, what were the problems with it?”

Six of the participants thought that their lessons were quite effective, while 16 of them thought that their lessons were not effective enough to remediate the assigned misconception. Table 3 summarizes the reasons/problems perceived by the participants who thought their lessons were not effective enough, along with the number of participants reporting them. The problems/reasons were classified under ten categories.

As can be seen from Table 3, while some participants mentioned problems related to themselves, such as the inadequacy of their designed lesson plan or the application of it, others indicated outside factors such as limited time, the inadequacy of the students, and the low motivation of the students, etc.

The third question directed to the participants was: “Did you notice that you had any science/chemistry misconceptions before taking this course that you corrected during the course? If yes, what were they?

Participants responded to this question as if it was asked about notification of holding any misconception among the assigned ones, although the researcher intended to ask in a more general way (any science/chemistry misconception). 18 of the participants declared that they had had at least one misconception among the assigned ones prior to taking this course, but noticed and corrected it during the course; only four responded that they had had no misconceptions among the worked ones before taking this course. Table 4 shows the number and type of misconceptions held by the 18 participants who responded positively.

Table 4 shows that six of the misconceptions addressed during the course were also held by at least one participant preservice teacher prior to taking the “course”. It is also evident that the most confusing topics are the strength and concentration of acids and bases and the nature of chemical equilibrium.

Effectiveness of the lessons designed by preservice chemistry teachers (during this course) in terms of changing high school students' chemistry misconceptions

As explained in the “data sources, collection, and data analysis” section, each preservice teacher's lesson was classified by the researcher as “highly effective”, “partially effective”, and “not so effective” as a result of analyzing high school students' responses to questions prepared by the corresponding preservice teacher. Table 5 shows the percentage of improvement after each preservice teacher's lesson. It can be seen that six of the designed lessons were “highly effective” (HE), nine were “partially effective” (PE), and one was “not so effective” (NSE) in eliminating the target misconceptions (see Table 5). Since six of the participants could not apply either pre or post questionnaires, no decision could be made on these lessons' effectiveness. A brief summary of the flow of a lesson designed by one of the participants (S16) to change the “chemical equilibrium is a static process” misconception can be found in Appendix D, ESI.†

Table 5 Percentages related to the category of response and improvement after each preservice teacher's lesson

No.	Category of response	Pre measurement	Post measurement	Direction of change	Perc. of imprvt.	Effectiveness
a M: Misconception. b SC: Scientific Conception. c PSC: Partially Scientific Conception.
S1	M^a	76%	13%	↓	+63%	HE
	SC^b	24%	87%	↑
S2	No data	—	—	—	—	—
S3	M	60%	10%	↓	+50%	PE
	SC	40%	90%	↑
S4	M	65%	20%	↓	+45%	PE
	SC	35%	80%	↑
S5	No data	—	—	—	—	—
S6	M	80%	53%	↓	+27%	PE
	SC	20%	47%	↑
S7	M	20%	0%	↓	+83%	HE
	PSC^c	80%	17%	↓
	SC	0%	83%	↑
S8	M	0%	0%	↔	+79%	HE
	PSC	100%	21%	↓
	SC	0%	79%	↑
S9	M	82%	26%	↓	+56%	PE
	SC	18%	74%	↑
S10	No data	—	—	—	—	—
S11	M	20%	0%	↓	+40%	PE
	PSC	65%	45%	↓
	SC	15%	55%	↑
S12	M	100%	38%	↓	+62%	HE
	SC	0%	62%	↑
S13	M	48%	20%	↓	+28%	PE
	SC	52%	80%	↑
S14	No data	—	—	—	—	—
S15	M	100%	25%	↓	+75%	HE
	SC	0%	75%	↑
S16	M	56%	27%	↓	+29%	PE
	SC	44%	73%	↑
S17	No data	—	—	—	—	—
S18	M	44%	17%	↓	+27%	PE
	SC	56%	83%	↑
S19	M	100%	80%	↓	+20%	NSE
	SC	0%	20%	↑
S20	M	90%	15%	↓	+75%	HE
	SC	10%	85%	↑
S21	No data	—	—	—	—	—
S22	M	68%	0%	↓	+55%	PE
	PSC	32%	45%	↑
	SC	0%	55%	↑

---

Discussions

According to Penick and Yager (1988), teacher educators must provide opportunities for preservice teachers in which they do more than study or talk about the theoretical issues, because they need to practice associated teaching skills. With this project, the researcher aimed to provide a learning environment for preservice teachers in which they collaboratively attempt to design and apply lesson plans that would change high school students' chemistry misconceptions into more scientific conceptions, and then to check the conceptual understandings of these students.

The rationale behind initiation of this project stemmed from the assumption that theoretical knowledge does not guarantee that preservice teachers will arrive at the outcomes teacher educators expect them to reach—in other words, that they will attain the desired knowledge and skills needed to teach effectively. The research literature suggested that constructivist-oriented approaches often require teacher education students and teacher educators to engage in dialogue, reflection, and inquiry, and are more likely than other types of approaches to influence teacher change in desired directions (Tatto, 1998). Johnston (2003) claims that the extent to which methods courses focus on constructivist learning skills and go beyond lecturing about learning theories will determine whether they prepare preservice teachers to teach the real nature of science. According to several studies (Balas, 1998; Huinker and Madison, 1995; Sottile et al., 2001; cited in Johnston, 2003, p. 2), the number of active learning experiences affects prospective teachers' perceptions about themselves as successful science instructors.

According to Dangel and Guyton (2004), constructivist principles can be applied in various forms, ranging from “single assignments” to “courses with practica” to “extended programs and institutes” that are organized to facilitate learners' construction of their own knowledge. Despite the range of forms, principles such as reflection, learner-centred instruction, collaborative learning, posing relevant problems, authentic assessment, professional portfolios, inquiry/action research, and personal engagement are utilized alone or along with others (Dangel and Guyton). The common denominators of these principles are experience, collaboration, practice, reflection and active involvement.

In the present study, participants passed through a variety of experiences, including listening, reading, discussing, searching, interacting, doing, collaborating, planning, practicing, reflecting and evaluating; all of these require “action”. According to the observations of the researcher and mentor teachers observing the applied lessons, and the reflections of the participants, it can be concluded that this course had positive impacts on preservice teachers, and so it is possible to state that this phase of the project achieved its objectives to a great extent. It seems that its impacts on both preservice teachers (directly) and high school students (indirectly) are noteworthy. The majority of the participants realized the importance and variety of misconceptions, as well as ways of dealing with them. They learned not only from their own experiences, but also those of their classmates. On the other hand, there is satisfying evidence that many of the high school students' misconceptions concerning these fundamental chemistry concepts changed in the desired direction after the lessons.

With the idea and activities used in this “course”, preservice teachers not only learned about the theoretical knowledge, but also attempted to use, apply and practice theoretical knowledge in identifying and changing misconceptions of students. Such applied courses are important elements in formulating a professional program in science education (National Science Teachers Association, 1986).

Conclusions and implications

This study described a “course” in a chemistry teacher education program offered during the last phase of a research project aiming to put preservice teachers into action with regard to changing high school students' misconceptions. Throughout the process, preservice teachers were in action. In a three month period, 22 preservice chemistry teachers attended a series of classes on designing and applying lesson plans for high school students. They then reflected on both their own performances and gains, and the changes in high school students' conceptual understandings.

According to their reflections, it might be concluded that as a result of this experience the majority of the participants came up with (a) an informed view of the characteristics of misconceptions, (b) an understanding about the difficulty of dealing with misconceptions, (c) an idea about their lessons' effectiveness and reasons for that, and (d) an awareness of their own misconceptions. Most of the participants who found their lessons quite effective attribute this to working hard on their lesson plans. On the other hand, participants who found their lessons not effective enough attribute this lack of effectiveness to the low quality of their lesson plans and their implementations of these plans, to the readiness and motivation of students, to the limited time given to apply the lesson, to the difficulty of the misconception assigned to them, or to other outside factors. Most of them could propose many relevant and sound suggestions for improving their pre/post questions and lesson plans.

In addition to analyzing preservice teachers' reflections, this study also analyzed the effectiveness of preservice teachers' lessons in terms of changing high school students' misconceptions. This analysis was carried out to obtain evidence about the transferability of preservice teachers' understandings to performance. According to the data collected from the high school students, it was found that most of the designed lessons were “highly effective” or “partially effective” in changing the target misconception in positive direction.

The results of this study supported the idea that preservice teachers need to experience some practical applications of pedagogical theory and to reflect on them. The findings provide concrete evidence to teacher educators of the benefits of applying similar approaches, which prioritize a “learning by doing” strategy, for better educating the future teachers, especially for dealing with misconceptions.

As an extension of this project, the researcher plans to follow a few participants of this study in their workplaces, and so some more information may be gained regarding the long-term effects of this particular “course”. It would be very interesting to see whether they continue to conduct similar practices or more traditional ones in their future teaching careers.

Acknowledgements

Since this project (with No. 1831) was financially supported by Bogazici University Research Projects Fund, the author would like to thank the Bogazici University for supporting this project. The author also wishes to thank all the participants of the study, and the reviewers and editor of the Journal.

References

1. Adadan, E., Trundle, K., and Irving, K. E., (2010), Exploring grade 11 students' conceptual pathways of the particulate nature of matter in the context of multirepresentational instruction. J. Res. Sci. Teach., 47(8), 1004–1035.
2. Allen, M., (2010), Misconceptions in primary science. England: Open University Press.
3. Ausubel, D., (1968), Educational psychology: A cognitive view. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
4. Ball, D. L., Thames, M. H., and Phelps, G., (2008), Content knowledge for teaching: What makes it special? J. Teach. Educ., 59(5), 389–406.
5. Banerjee, A. C., (1991), Misconceptions of students and teachers in chemical equilibrium. Int. J. Sci. Educ., 13, 487–494.
6. Berg, T. and Brouwer, W., (1991), Teacher awareness of student alternate conceptions about rotational motion and gravity, J. Res. Sci. Teach., 28, 3–18.
7. Bodner, G. M., (1991), I have found you an argument: The conceptual knowledge of beginning chemistry graduate students, J. Chem. Educ., 68(5), 385–388.
8. Cakmakci, G., (2010), Identifying alternative conceptions of chemical kinetics among secondary school and undergraduate students in Turkey. J. Chem. Educ., 87(4), 449–455.
9. Calik, M., Ayas, A. and Coll, R. K., (2007), Enhancing preservice primary teachers' conceptual understanding of solution chemistry with conceptual change text. Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ., 5(1), 1–28.
10. Canpolat, N., (2006), Turkish undergraduates' misconceptions of evaporation, evaporation rate and vapour pressure. Int. J. Sci. Educ., 28(15), 1757–1770.
11. Campbell, D. T., and Stanley, J. C., (1963), Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research on teaching. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
12. Caramaza, A., McCloskey, M., and Green, B., (1981), Naive beliefs in “sophisticated” subjects: Misconceptions about the trajectories of objects. Cognition, 9, 117–123.
13. Creswell, J. W., (2005), Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (2nd edn). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
14. Cros, D., Chastrette, M., and Fayol, M., (1988), Conceptions of second year university students of some fundamental notions in chemistry. Int. J. Sci. Educ., 10, 331–336.
15. Dangel, J. R., and Guyton, E., (2004), An emerging picture of constructivist teacher education. The Constructivist, 15(1), 1–18.
16. Dhindsa, H. S., and Treagust, D. F., (2009), Conceptual understanding of Bruneian tertiary students: Chemical bonding and structure. Brunei Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ., 1(1), 33–51.
17. Dial, K., Riddley, D., Williams, K., and Sampson, V., (2009), Addressing misconceptions: A demonstration to help students understand the law of conservation of mass. The Science Teacher, 76(7), 54–57.
18. Driver, R., (1989), Students' conceptions and the learning of science. Int. J. Sci. Educ., 11, 481–490.
19. Erdemir, A., Geban, Ö., and Uzuntiryaki, E., (2000), Freshman students' misconceptions in chemical equilibrium. Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 18, 79–84.
20. Fullan, M., (2001), The new meaning of educational change (3rd edn). New York: Teachers College Press.
21. Gabel, D. L., (1994), Handbook of research on science teaching and learning. NewYork: Macmillan.
22. Gabel, D. L., Samuel, K. V., and Hunn, D. J., (1987), Understanding the particulate nature of matter. J. Chem. Educ., 64, 695–697.
23. Garnett, P. J., Garnett, P. J., and Hackling, M. W., (1995), Students' alternative conceptions in chemistry: A review of research and implications for teaching and learning. Stud. Sci. Educ., 25, 69–95.
24. Gilbert, J. K., Osborne, R. J., and Fensham, P. J., (1982), Children's science and its consequences for teaching. Sci. Educ., 66, 623–633.
25. Gilbert, J. K., and Swift, D. J., (1985), Towards a Lakatosian analysis of the Piagetian and alternative conceptions research programs, Sci. Educ., 69, 681–696.
26. Ginns, I. S., and Watters, J. J., (1995), An analysis of scientific understandings of preservice elementary teacher education students. J. Res. Sci. Teach., 32(2), 205–222.
27. Gomez-Zwiep, S., (2008), Elementary teachers' understanding of students' science misconceptions: Implications for Practice and Teacher Education. J. Sci. Teach. Educ., 19, 437–454.
28. Halim, L. and Meerah, S. M., (2002), Science trainee teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and its influence on physics teaching. Res. Sci. Technol. Educ., 20(2), 215–225.
29. Ingwalson, G., (2010), Exploring experiental learning. The Researcher, 23(1), 30–40.
30. Jarvis, T., McKeon, F., and Taylor, N., (2005), Promoting conceptual change in pre-service primary teachers through intensive small group problem-solving activities. Can. J. Sci. Math. Technol. Educ., 5(1), 21–39.
31. Johnston, J. D., (2003, November), Active learning and preservice teacher attitudinal change. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association, Biloxi, MS. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED482690).
32. Kelly, R. M., Barrera, J. H., and Mohamed, S. C., (2010), An analysis of undergraduate general chemistry students' misconceptions of the submicroscopic level of precipitation reactions. J. Chem. Educ., 87(1), 113–118.
33. Kozma, R., Russell, J., Johnston, J., and Dershimer, C., (1990), College students' understanding of chemical equilibrium. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, MA.
34. Kruse, R. A., and Roehrig, G. H., (2005), A comparison study: Assessing teachers' conceptions with the chemistry concepts inventory, J. Chem. Educ., 82(8), 1246–1251.
35. Nakhleh, M. B., Samarapungavan, A., and Saglam, Y., (2005), Middle school students' beliefs about matter. J. Res. Sci. Teach., 42, 581–612.
36. Nakiboglu, C., (2003), Instructional misconceptions of Turkish prospective chemistry teachers about atomic orbitals and hybridization. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 4(2), 171–188.
37. National Middle School Association, (2010), This we believe: Keys to educating young adolescents. Westerville, OH: National Middle School Association.
38. National Science Teachers Association, (1986), Position statement: Science Education for middle and junior high students. Washington, DC: National Science Teachers Association.
39. Novak, J., (1988), Learning science and the science of learning. Stud. Sci. Educ., 15, 77–101.
40. Nussbaum, J., and Novick, S., (1982), Alternative frameworks, conceptual conflict and accommodation: Towards a principled teaching strategy. Instr. Sci., 11, 183–200.
41. Ogborn, J., (2002), Ownership and transformation: Teachers using curriculum innovation. Phys. Educ., 37(2), 142–146.
42. Ozden, M., (2009), Prospective science teachers' conceptions of the solution chemistry. J. Baltic Sci. Educ., 8(2), 69–78.
43. Penick, J.E., and Yager, R. E., (1988), Science teacher eduation: A program with a theoretical and pragmatic rationale. J. Teach. Educ., 39(6), 59–64.
44. Peterson, R. F., Treagust, D. F. and Garnett, P., (1989), Development and application of a diagnostic instrument to evaluate grade-11 and grade-12 students' concepts of covalent bonding and structure following a course of instruction. J. Res. Sci. Teach., 26, 301–314.
45. Pinarbasi, T., and Canpolat, N., (2003), Students' understanding of solution chemistry concepts. J. Chem. Educ., 80(11), 1328–1332.
46. Ross, B., and Munby, H., (1991), Concept mapping and misconceptions: A study of high-school students' understandings of acids and bases. Int. J. Sci. Educ., 13(1), 11–23.
47. Smith, D. and Neale, D., (1991), The construction of subject matter knowledge in primary science teaching, Adv. Res. Teach., 2, 187–243.
48. Shulman, L. S., (1986), Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educ. Res., 15(2), 4–14.
49. Shulman, L. S., (1987), Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of new reform. Harvard Educ. Rev., 57, 1–22.
50. Stavy, R., (1988), Children's conception of gas. Int. J. Sci. Educ., 10(5), 553–560.
51. Taber, K., (2002), Chemical misconceptions: Prevention, diagnosis and cure, Vol: 1. Theoretical background. London: Royal Society of Chemistry.
52. Talanquer, V., (2009), On cognitive constraints and learning progressions: The case of structure of matter. Int. J. Sci. Educ., 31(15), 2123–2136.
53. Tan, K. C. D. and Taber, K. S., (2009), Ionization energy: Implications of preservice teachers' conceptions. J. Chem. Educ., 86(5), 623–629.
54. Tatto, M. T., (1998), The influence of teacher education on teachers' beliefs about purposes of education, roles, and practice. J. Teach. Educ., 49(1), 66–77.
55. Valanides, N., (2000), Primary student teachers' understanding of the particulate nature of matter and its transformations during dissolving. Chem. Educ. Res. Prac., 1, 249–262.
56. White, R., and Gunstone, R., (1992), Probing Understanding. London: Falmer Press.
57. Yang, E. M., Greenbowe, T. J., and Andre, T., (2004), The effective use of an interactive software program to reduce students' misconceptions about batteries. J. Chem. Educ., 81(4), 587–595.
58. Yezierski, E. J., and Birk, J. P., (2006), Misconceptions about the particulate nature of matter: Using animations to close the gender gap. J. Chem. Educ., 83(6), 954–960.
59. Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., and Hyde, A., (1998), Best practice: New standards for teaching and learning in America's schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

---

Footnote

† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c2rp20109g

---