Lilith
Rüschenpöhler
* and
Silvija
Markic
Ludwigsburg University of Education, Reuteallee 46, 71634 Ludwigsburg, Germany. E-mail: rueschenpoehler@ph-ludwigsburg.de
First published on 2nd September 2019
While science self-concepts of secondary school students have received considerable attention, several important aspects of chemistry self-concepts have not yet been understood: gender relations, the impact of students' cultural backgrounds, and the impact of chemistry self-concept on learning processes. In the present study, (i) we could confirm our hypothesis that chemistry self-concept is strongly related to learning goal orientations. This part of the study built upon knowledge from educational psychology. Our results open the field for practical interventions designed to influence chemistry self-concepts. (ii) We investigated the gender relations in chemistry self-concept with a special focus on students’ cultural backgrounds. The results show that chemistry self-concept differs from science self-concept: the gender gap traditionally described in the literature could not be found. Instead, the study suggests that an interaction of gender and cultural background might influence chemistry self-concepts. (iii) We were interested in the influence of the context of chemistry classroom and language on self-concept. In line with the literature, we found that a good relationship with the chemistry teacher seems to have a positive impact on chemistry self-concept. Also, the perception of chemistry language and chemistry self-concepts were strongly correlated. Suggestions are made for practical interventions based on these findings.
However, many aspects of secondary school students’ chemistry self-concepts are insufficiently understood. While general science and physics self-concepts of secondary school students have been studied extensively, studies in chemistry education tend to concentrate on chemistry self-concepts of college students (e.g., Bauer, 2005; Nielsen and Yezierski, 2015, 2016). Regarding secondary school students, several questions remain unresolved.
The study presented in this article covers three aspects: (i) the relation of self-concept to learning processes in chemistry. In educational psychology, it is assumed that students with positive self-concepts tend to show learning goal orientations (Dishon-Berkovits, 2014). Based on these findings, we assume that a similar relation can be found for chemistry, i.e., a positive relation between chemistry self-concept and chemistry learning goal orientations. Establishing this relation is important because it helps to think about the practical implications of self-concept research. In many studies, self-concept research remains at the theoretical level because self-concept is difficult to act upon. Learning goal orientations are more concrete and, therefore, interesting for the design of interventions. Suggestions for practical implications of the study's results are given in the discussion.
(ii) The impact of gender on secondary school students’ chemistry self-concepts is not entirely clear. Here, we assume we will find differences to the other science fields because research suggests that chemistry might be less closely associated with masculinity than physics but more so than biology: girls tend to have stronger self-concepts in biology than boys and select biology courses more frequently (Nagy et al., 2006). Boys have higher self-concepts in physics and are more likely to choose a physics-related career than girls (Sikora and Pokropek, 2012). In contrast, girls and boys seem to be equally interested in chemistry (Broman and Simon, 2015). Is chemistry, therefore, gender-neutral? This aspect needs further investigation. We will look at this from a perspective that takes into account students’ cultural backgrounds. This is necessary because students’ science self-concepts depend on their cultural backgrounds (e.g., Leslie et al., 1998; Riegle-Crumb et al., 2011; Lau, 2014), and gender is a cultural construct. In the present study, we thus aim at gaining a deeper understanding of the impact of gender in its interplay with culture on students’ chemistry self-concepts.
(iii) We investigate how the social context and the use of chemistry language affect self-concept. Here, we are unaware of a study investigating the relation between language and self-concept in science. However, it is known that chemistry language poses difficulties to many students, as is the case for physics, too. Because of this lack of investigations, we focus on the relation between self-concept and language in chemistry in an exemplary manner. In educational psychology, it is assumed that self-concept is closely related to the social context in class (Lin et al., 2009; Jacques et al., 2012). Since linguistic issues play an important role in chemistry learning (e.g., Markic and Childs, 2016), we assume that the perception of chemistry language is closely related to chemistry self-concept.
The main reason for the interest in academic self-concept is its strong relation to outcome variables such as achievement (an overview: Marsh and Craven, 2006; for chemistry: Lewis et al., 2009; Jansen et al., 2014) and career choices (Nagengast and Marsh, 2012; Taskinen et al., 2013). Students with positive self-concepts in a subject are more likely than other students to achieve well in the subject and to opt for related careers. Today, it is assumed that self-concept influences achievement and vice versa (the ‘reciprocal effects model’, Marsh and Craven, 2006). But how can beliefs about one's abilities translate into achievement?
There are several indicators of learning goal orientations. One such indicator is the incremental theory of intelligence. It means that students with a learning goal orientation tend to perceive their abilities as changeable (Dweck and Leggett, 1988, p. 262). They believe that they can develop their competencies if they make enough effort. Further, students with a learning goal orientation tend to be more persistent when they are confronted with a difficult task (Dweck, 1986). They do not give up quickly because they believe in their ability to learn and to understand. Persistence is thus another indicator of learning goal orientations. The third aspect of learning goal orientations is the need for cognition (Cacioppo and Petty, 1982). Students with a learning goal orientation tend to “engage in and enjoy thinking” (Dickhäuser and Reinhard, 2006, p. 491). This enjoyment of thinking is closely related to learning goal orientations (Day et al., 2007).
We can conclude from these two sections that self-concepts have a close relationship with achievement that seems to be mediated by learning goal orientations. We, therefore, hypothesize that a similar structure can be found for chemistry self-concepts. We assume that chemistry self-concepts influence chemistry learning goal orientations. If this is true, it could have important implications for chemistry research and teaching practice. It could, for instance, be interesting to develop and test teaching strategies that focus on task choice behaviour. Teaching strategies that help students to reflect their goal orientations in chemistry class could help them to overcome persisting cognitive and behavioural patterns. Discussions with other students could provide insights into alternative perspectives on task choices in chemistry. This could increase the practical outreach of chemistry self-concept research.
However, we do know that language plays a pivotal role in chemistry learning (for an overview see Markic and Childs, 2016). The same is true for the social context. Social support is crucial in chemistry identity formation (Grunert and Bodner, 2011). Supportive and collaborative work among peers can reduce anxiety and support student achievement in chemistry (e.g., Eren-Sisman et al., 2018). In addition, a supportive relationship with the teacher seems to be of high importance for achievement in chemistry. This is particularly true for students from marginalized ethnic groups (Wood et al., 2013).
If chemistry self-concept is related to the social context, this would open the field for further practical implications of chemistry self-concept research. Just as described in the section above, it could be interesting for both teachers and students to engage in discussions about task choice behaviour and chemistry self-concepts. Interventions could focus on creating supportive and encouraging relationships between peers and with the teacher.
Cultural differences have received some attention in science self-concept research as well. East Asian students achieve well in science but their self-concepts tend to be lower than those of students in many Western countries (Lau, 2014). Furthermore, the self-concepts of minority students have been investigated. Minority students tend to have lower self-concepts than students who belong to a country's dominant ethnic group (Leslie et al., 1998; Riegle-Crumb et al., 2011; Woods-McConney et al., 2013; Simpkins et al., 2015). An exception is Asian students living in a Western country. These students show stronger science self-concepts than the dominant group (DeWitt et al., 2011). These findings indicate that science self-concepts might be influenced by the students’ cultural backgrounds. For chemistry education, there seem to be no studies investigating the impact of students’ cultural backgrounds on self-concept. We, therefore, do not know if the students’ cultural backgrounds influence chemistry self-concepts, or if they are independent of culture.
Thoroughly tested and validated instruments for measuring chemistry self-concept exist for higher education. Here, the Chemistry Self-Concept Inventory (CSCI) (Bauer, 2005) is available. Also, the Attitude toward the Subject of Chemistry Inventory (ASCI) (Bauer, 2008; revised version: Xu and Lewis, 2011) provides a scale for measuring chemistry self-concept. Both scales can measure chemistry self-concepts of college students because they are based on Marsh's Self-Description Questionnaire III (SDQ) (Marsh, 1992), which is designed for young adults. For secondary school students, we are not aware of an instrument that would constitute a standard in measuring chemistry self-concept. However, for science, several established and well-tested instruments exist (e.g., SDQ II, Marsh, 1992; and the PISA 2006 science self-concept scale, OECD, 2009b).
In order to advance chemistry self-concept research, it would first be necessary to develop and validate an instrument for assessing secondary school students’ chemistry self-concepts. Furthermore, if gender and cultural background have an impact on chemistry self-concept, these factors would need to be considered in future research on chemistry self-concept. In addition, the relations of gender and cultural background with chemistry self-concept would need further attention in qualitative studies investigating identity constructions in chemistry as has been done for many science disciplines (e.g., Archer et al., 2010).
In addition to the quantitative part of the study, we conducted interviews with some of these students (N = 43) (Rüschenpöhler and Markic, 2019). In these interviews, we sought to find out how chemistry self-concepts might be associated with learning behaviour and the social context. The data suggested that learning and performance goal orientations, as well as social orientations, might not be the same in the different culture and gender groups. For example, the Turkish girls showed strong social orientations, whereas this seemed to be of little relevance for the German boys although the chemistry self-concepts were quite strong in both groups. The language of chemistry seemed to be perceived as difficult especially by those students with weak chemistry self-concepts (Rüschenpöhler and Markic, 2019).
(i) What chemistry self-concepts do secondary school students of different genders and cultural backgrounds have?
(ii) How are secondary school students’ chemistry self-concepts related to learning goal orientations?
(iii) How are secondary school students’ chemistry self-concepts related to the social context in the classroom and the perception of chemistry language?
Self-concept was measured using an adapted version of the PISA 2006 science self-concept scale (Q37) (OECD, 2009b) with six items in which we replaced the word “science” with “chemistry”. To assess the students’ feelings of social belonging, we chose to employ three separate scales. We measured the perception of the social context using three indicators: (i) the feeling of belonging to the group was measured with the five-item PISA 2003 sense of belonging scale (Q27) (OECD, 2005) that we adapted slightly to fit the context of chemistry class; (ii) the perceptions of peer relationships were measured with the student support scale from the HBSC 2013/2014 study (MQ61) (Inchley et al., 2016) with three items, in which we replaced “my class” with “my chemistry class”; and (iii) the perceptions of the relationship to the chemistry teacher were measured with the teacher support scale from the same study (MQ62) (Inchley et al., 2016) with three items, in which we replaced “teacher” with “chemistry teacher”.
We measured the students’ learning goal orientations with three indicators. The first indicator was (i) the students’ need for cognition in chemistry. We based the scale upon the measure developed by Cacioppo and Petty (1982) and added “in chemistry” to the sentences. However, with its 45 items, it would have been too long for our purpose, so we retained only items 1, 4, 18, 23, 40, and 41. This choice was partly based on the limited number of items for which a German translation was available (Bless et al., 1994). Out of the 33 items that were available in English and German, we chose six that we expected to be both comprehensible for the students and pertinent in the specific context of chemistry education. Besides the need for cognition, we measured (ii) the students’ perceptions of their task persistence in chemistry with the five-item scale of the PISA 2012 questionnaire (Q36) (OECD, 2014a) in which we inserted “in chemistry” in each sentence. As the third indicator of learning goal orientations, we chose (iii) the students’ theory of intelligence in chemistry, namely their entity and incrementalist beliefs about their abilities in chemistry. To construct this scale, we selected four out of six items from Dweck's (2000) entity and incrementalist beliefs scales, added “in chemistry” to the sentences and used Spinath's (1998) translation.
The majority of the questionnaires (70.1%) was collected by one of the authors, following a predefined procedure with which we aimed at enhancing the linguistic comprehensibility of the items: all text was read aloud. The general introduction was read by students who volunteered to read, whereas the items of the scales were read by the administrator. Our concern was that reading competencies vary greatly between students as a considerable number of students are below the baseline reading level defined in the PISA studies (OECD, 2014b). Limiting the number of items, reading them aloud, and encouraging student questions concerning the meaning of the phrases and words aimed at obtaining data of higher quality than could be expected from a design in which students were to read all questions silently by themselves, especially for non-native students and second language learners. In order to ensure a high level of objectivity in the test situation, the questionnaires that we could not collect in person (29.9%) were accompanied by instructions for the teachers who administered them.
We included all types of secondary schools except for special needs education schools.‡ Most of them (7) were situated in the metropolitan area of Stuttgart, in the south of Germany, two schools in an urban setting in Bremen, in the north of the country, and one school in a rural area close to Stuttgart. Our sample, therefore, represents a rather urban population. 266 (45.5%) of the students were female, 314 (53.7%) male, and 5 (0.8%) did not report their gender.
In order to group the students according to their cultural backgrounds, we employed the definition of migration background that had been used for the official 2013 census (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2013) in Germany. According to this definition, every student who was born in a country other than Germany or whose parent(s) was(were) born in a country other than Germany has a migration background. Since the concept of migration background is quite abstract and especially so for underage students, we included an explanation for the criteria for having a migration background in the questionnaire in order to attain more valid results. Following this definition, 72 (12.3%) had a Turkish or Kurdish migration background, 19 (3.2%) an Italian, 17 (2.9%) each a Greek, Kosovan, or Polish, 11 (1.7%) a Croatian, 10 (1.7%) a Russian, and 9 (1.7%) each a Bosnian or Romanian migration background. 85 (14.5%) had other migration backgrounds, 50 (8.5%) reported a multiple migration background, while 18 (3.0%) did not specify the type of their migration background. 248 (42.4%) stated not to have a migration background. For research question (i), we analysed only the data of the students without migration background and those with a Turkish background. For research questions (ii) and (iii), we used the complete data set.
Participation in the study was based on informed consent. Prior to conducting the study, we obtained permission of the local ministry of education, youth, and sports (Ministerium für Kultus, Jugend und Sport Baden-Württemberg) and the schools. Since most of the students were underage, we also obtained the teachers’, the students’, and their parents’ permissions. This was done in a letter to the parents, teachers, and students in which we described the purpose of the study and the students’ role in it, and in which we informed them about the voluntary nature of the participation. We explained that school principals, teachers, students, and parents could withdraw their permission at any moment in which case the student data would be deleted. Only those students who volunteered and whose parents and teachers had consented to their participation in written form participated in the study. A code was generated for each questionnaire that allowed tracing it back to its class. However, it was not possible to trace the data back to individual students.
Second, we tested a linear regression model on the data. For this analysis, we used the whole sample (N = 585). We constructed a model with self-concept as the dependent variable and sense of belonging, perceived student and teacher support, incremental theory, perceived task persistence, need for cognition, and feeling of understanding chemistry language as independent variables in order to answer research questions (ii) and (iii). Here again, we used group mean centred values. In all analyses, negatively worded items were reverse coded (see the Appendix) so that, e.g., high scores on the self-concept scale indicate positive self-concepts.
We analysed the data using R (R Core Team, 2017) with the packages car (Fox and Weisberg, 2011), psych (Revelle, 2017), QuantPsyc (Fletcher, 2012) and WRS2 (Mair et al., 2017) as well as multiple helper functions (Wickham, 2007, 2009, 2011; Dahl, 2016; Henry and Wickham, 2017; Wickham et al., 2017; Lüdecke, 2018; Wickham and Henry, 2018).
Item | M | SD | α | SRMR | CFI | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Student support | 3 | 4.55 | 1.14 | 0.72 | 0.036 | 0.978 |
Belonging | 5 | 4.85 | 1.14 | 0.78 | 0.041 | 0.939 |
Teacher support | 3 | 4.38 | 1.32 | 0.72 | 0.059 | 0.948 |
Self-concept | 6 | 3.91 | 1.23 | 0.91 | 0.026 | 0.971 |
Incremental theory | 4 | 4.24 | 1.22 | 0.65 | 0.122 | 0.761 |
Persistence | 5 | 3.81 | 1.22 | 0.77 | 0.057 | 0.890 |
Need for cognition | 6 | 3.63 | 1.43 | 0.76 | 0.039 | 0.951 |
Language | 4 | 4.30 | 1.31 | 0.80 | 0.018 | 0.987 |
Problematic was the incremental theory scale. Its reliability was quite low (0.65). In addition, unidimensionality could be confirmed via CFAs for all the scales except for the incremental theory scale (SRMR = 0.122; CFI 0.716, see Table 1). Observations in class pointed to the underlying problems. A number of items were difficult to understand for some of the students due to the items’ sophisticated language. We knew about these difficulties because we had encouraged the students to ask us if there was something they did not understand. In several classes, discussions with the students emerged about the items of the incremental theory scale. Other scales, such as the language and self-concept scales, raised almost no questions. In addition, some teachers had expressed their concerns about the comprehensibility of the scale in informal conversations before or after conducting the study.
Based on these findings, we decided to exclude the incremental theory scale from further analyses since the scores were not sufficiently reliable, its unidimensionality was not shown and some students seemed to have had difficulties understanding the items.
Fig. 1 Interaction plots of the effects of gender and Turkish migration background on chemistry self-concept with error bars. |
Levene's test was significant for both gender (p < 0.01) and the interaction variable (p < 0.05). We, therefore, conducted a robust analysis using a bootstrap with 599 repetitions using the modified one-step estimator of location and Mahalanobis distances provided in the t2way function of WRS2 (Mair et al., 2017). The main effects of gender, F(1, 312) = 0.04, p = 0.843, and cultural background, F(1, 312) = 2.98, p = 0.089 on chemistry self-concept were not significant. The test revealed a significant interaction effect of gender and cultural background on chemistry self-concept, F(1, 312) = 6.51, p < 0.05. This indicates that gender differences might not be the same between the German and Turkish students, just as the preliminary study had indicated.
Fig. 2 Scatterplots with linear regression for the relationships of persistence, need for cognition, and language with self-concept. |
After the exploration, we ran the linear model with deviation contrasts for the categorical variables (Table 2). The values of the psychological variables were group mean centred and standardised. Persistence, need for cognition and understanding of scientific language in chemistry seemed to be good predictors of chemistry self-concept with high β values. Teacher support and Turkish migration background contributed significantly to the model but with lower β values. All the other variables had much smaller β values, indicating that their predictive power was lower, and they did not make a significant contribution to the model. These findings suggest that chemistry self-concepts are closely related to learning goal orientations and the perception of chemistry language. The social context in chemistry class seemed to explain only little variance in chemistry self-concept. The only exception was the students’ relation to their chemistry teacher which seemed to have an impact on chemistry self-concept.
β | SE β | p | |
---|---|---|---|
Student support | 0.044 | 0.034 | 0.191 |
Belonging | 0.052 | 0.038 | 0.172 |
Teacher support | 0.075 | 0.028 | 0.008** |
Persistence | 0.365 | 0.044 | <0.001*** |
Need for cognition | 0.197 | 0.035 | <0.001*** |
Language | 0.327 | 0.035 | <0.001*** |
Gender | 0.040 | 0.024 | 0.097 |
Turkish background | −0.091 | 0.035 | 0.009** |
No migration background | 0.062 | 0.048 | 0.193 |
For researchers and chemistry teachers, this opens an interesting field for application-focused research. We believe that a reflection on task choice behaviour in small groups of students could be an interesting approach for supporting students’ development of a positive chemistry self-concept. For instance, in a teaching sequence, students could be asked several times to choose a task individually. These choices would need to be supported and reflected. This could be done by first asking the students to explicit their goals using several guiding questions or items. In the next steps the students could discuss their rationales in small groups of peers in order to discover alternative ways of thinking and of choosing tasks. This exchange could broaden the students’ set of alternative ways of thinking and also increase mutual understanding of the difficulties the individual students face. We believe that this type of intervention could unfold the potential of chemistry self-concept research for concrete impact on teaching practice.
The perception of language seems to be closely related to chemistry self-concept. This finding could possibly be explained by underlying identification processes. If a student can think of himself or herself as a chemistry person, he or she will be more likely to perceive the language in chemistry class as natural. In contrast, if a student feels like he or she is unable to understand the language in chemistry class, this can be a sign of a lack of identification with chemistry.
Here, too, application-focused research could be interesting because language is something that can be worked on in interventions. While language-sensitive chemistry teaching is quite established, its link to self-concept and chemistry identity formation seems not to have been explored yet. Here, too, chemistry self-concept research could have practical implications. Language-sensitive chemistry teaching tends to focus on helping students to address practical challenges in chemistry teaching. The emotional and social aspects of the perception of chemistry language tend not to be discussed in class. It would, for instance, be interesting to discuss in class in how far students know chemistry language from home – which terms they already knew before entering chemistry classes and who in their surrounding understands certain chemical terms. If carried out in a sensitive way, this could help students and teachers to acknowledge that chemistry language is familiar to some, while it feels alien to others. This type of discussion could be followed by a language-sensitive science teaching sequence. We believe that this could deepen the students’ and teachers’ sensitivity for the different relations the students have with chemistry language. This perspective on language-sensitive chemistry teaching inspired by self-concept and identity research could open the field for a practical impact of chemistry self-concept research.
The data suggest that gender relations in chemistry self-concept might not be the same in these two groups based on their cultural backgrounds. What could explain these differences? Although a thorough analysis of the literature is beyond the scope of this study, we identified one factor that could contribute to the more balanced gender relation in chemistry self-concept among students with Turkish migration background. It seems like in Turkey science is less strongly associated with masculinity. Slightly more young women than men hold science degrees in Turkey (OECD, 2009a). Also, girls achieve substantially better in science than boys and are more ambitious in their work in the subject (Batyra, 2017a, 2017b). This contrasts the situation in Germany and most other developed countries where more men than women hold science degrees (OECD, 2009a). One hypothesis could be that the students with a Turkish migration background see chemistry as a domain that is open to both genders. However, this hypothesis would need further investigation.
It becomes clear that students’ cultural backgrounds need to be considered in research using chemistry self-concept as a variable and, in particular, when investigating gender relations and the construction of chemistry identities. If students with a Turkish background think about chemistry differently, it could be interesting to explore their thoughts and feelings about the masculinity of the subject in class. In particular, it would be interesting to discuss potential chemistry role models that might be relevant for the students. It could be fruitful to try to introduce chemistry role models in class – be it in person, via traditional or social media, or using fictional stories. Also, further implementing language-sensitive teaching in chemistry class could contribute to positive chemistry self-concepts because the perception of chemistry language seems to be closely related to chemistry self-concept. Here, the practical interest of science self-concept research becomes visible.
Perceived student support |
HBSC 2013/2014 (MQ61) (Inchley et al., 2016), “my class” replaced with “my chemistry class” |
1. The students in my chemistry class enjoy being together. |
2. Most of the students in my chemistry class are kind and helpful. |
3. In chemistry class, other students accept me as I am. |
Sense of belonging |
PISA 2003 (Q27) (OECD, 2005), “My school is a place where” replaced with “In my chemistry class” |
1. In my chemistry class, I feel like an outsider (or left out of things). (reverse coded) |
2. In my chemistry class, I make friends easily. |
3. In my chemistry class, I feel like I belong. |
4. In my chemistry class, I feel awkward and out of place. (reverse coded) |
5. In my chemistry class, other students seem to like me. |
Perceived teacher support |
HBSC 2013/2014 (MQ62) (Inchley et al., 2016), “teacher” replaced with “chemistry teacher” |
1. I feel that my chemistry teacher accepts me as I am. |
2. I feel that my chemistry teacher cares about me as a person. |
3. I feel a lot of trust in my chemistry teacher. |
Self-concept |
PISA 2006 (Q37) (OECD, 2009b), “science” replaced with “chemistry” |
1. Learning advanced chemistry topics would be easy for me. |
2. I can usually give good answers to test questions on chemistry topics. |
3. I learn chemistry topics quickly. |
4. Chemistry topics are easy for me. |
5. When I am being taught chemistry, I can understand the concepts very well. |
6. I can easily understand new ideas in chemistry. |
Incremental theory of intelligence, excluded from analyses |
Dweck's (2000), entity and incrementalist beliefs subscales, “for chemistry” added to the sentences |
1. You have a certain amount of intelligence in chemistry, and you can’t really do much to change it. (reverse coded) |
2. You can learn new things in chemistry, but you can’t really change your intelligence in chemistry. (reverse coded) |
3. No matter who you are, you can significantly change your chemistry intelligence level. |
4. No matter how much intelligence for chemistry you have, you can always change it quite a bit. |
Perceived task persistence |
PISA 2012 (Q36) (OECD, 2014a), “in chemistry” or “chemistry” added to the sentences |
1. When confronted with a problem in chemistry, I give up easily. (reverse coded) |
2. In chemistry, I put off difficult problems. (reverse coded) |
3. In chemistry, I remain interested in the tasks that I start. |
4. In chemistry, I continue working on tasks until everything is perfect. |
5. When confronted with a chemistry problem, I do more than what is expected of me. |
Need for cognition |
Cacioppo and Petty (1982), items 1, 4, 18, 23, 40, and 41, “in chemistry” added to the sentences |
1. I really enjoy a task in chemistry that involves coming up with new solutions to problems. |
2. I would prefer a task in chemistry that is intellectual, difficult, and important to one that is somewhat important but does not require much thought. |
3. In chemistry, I find it especially satisfying to complete an important task that requires a lot of thinking and mental effort. |
4. In chemistry, I would rather do something that requires little thought than something that is sure to challenge my thinking abilities. (reverse coded) |
5. In chemistry, I would prefer complex to simple problems. |
6. In chemistry, simply knowing the answer rather than understanding the reasons for the answer to a problem is fine with me. (reverse coded) |
Feeling of understanding chemistry language |
Constructed by the authors |
1. I understand the texts we read in chemistry. |
2. After having read a text in chemistry I sometimes don’t really know what it was about. (reverse coded) |
3. When my chemistry teacher is talking in class, I can follow easily. |
4. In chemistry class, it sometimes seems to me as if they all spoke a language I don’t understand. (reverse coded) |
5. Chemical equations confuse me. (reverse coded) |
6. I find it exciting to work on chemical equations. |
Footnotes |
† The reason for choosing only measures that are available in the English language as well was twofold: first, we intended to provide the possibility for later comparative studies at least in English-speaking countries, and second, we wanted to allow for a critical scrutiny of our study not only by German-speaking researchers but also in the international community. |
‡ The German school system is traditionally composed of three school types, i.e., Gymnasium, which prepares for university, Realschule, and Hauptschule. Traditionally, the students are assigned by the teachers to the school type, based on their achievement and their learning behaviour in primary school. In many parts of the country, the situation is changing: other school types have been created and sometimes the parents rather than their teachers decide about their children's school. However, the division is still present in most parts of the country. This study was conducted mainly in Baden-Württemberg and Bremen. Baden-Württemberg adheres to the tripartition with Gymnasium, Realschule, and Werkrealschule, and has recently introduced a fourth type for inclusive learning, the Gemeinschaftsschule. However, since this type was developed only recently, we were unable to find schools with grades 8–10 that we needed for our sample. All other school types were covered. In Bremen, the tripartition has been reduced to a division into two school types, Gymnasium and Oberschule, which were both covered in this study. |
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