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The Effect of Macro-micro-symbolic Teaching on Grade Ten Students' Conceptual Understanding of Chemical Reactions

The purpose of this research is threefold: (1) to identify difficulties that gra de ten students in a Lebanese school have that hinder their conceptual understan ding at the micro-macro-symbolic interface in chemistry, (2) to investigate the effect of a macro-micro-symbolic teaching approach on students' conceptual under standing of chemical reactions, and (3) to characterize students' conceptual pro files regarding their understanding of chemical reactions in terms of macro, mic ro, symbolic levels and the relations among them, at the end of the teaching seq uence. Forty six tenth graders from two sections in a Lebanese school participat ed in the study that used a pretest post-test control-group design. The sections were randomly assigned to the experimental and the control conditions during th e teaching of the chapter on chemical reactions. The same chemistry teacher taug ht both groups following a constructivist student-centered approach to learning. Furthermore, instruction in the experimental group was centered on a macro-micr o-symbolic teaching approach that (1) focuses on the interplay between the macro scopic, the microscopic and the symbolic levels, (2) integrates the use of vario us schematic representations, and (3) teaches explicitly with and about models. Data sources for the study included a pretest to identify students' difficulties and two post intervention tasks: a post-test and a concept map (CM) task to com pare students' conceptual understanding of chemical reactions. Another data sour ce was the interviews about the CM with eight students purposively selected from both the experimental and control groups to triangulate the findings of other d ata sources and to characterize students' conceptual profiles. Pretest results i ndicated that students in the control and experimental groups exhibited difficul ties related to the transitions between the macro, micro and symbolic levels. Th e post-test and the CM task results showed that the experimental group performed significantly higher than the control group and developed more interconnected a nd sophisticated conceptual profiles. Findings indicated that the macro-micro-sy mbolic teaching approach enhanced students' conceptual understanding and relatio nal learning of chemical reactions. Besides, the study presented four assertions related to students' ...

The purpose of this research is threefold: (1) to identify difficulties that gra de ten students in a Lebanese school have that hinder their conceptual understan ding at the micro-macro-symbolic interface in chemistry, (2) to investigate ...