UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF DENSITY AND CONCENTRATION: A CROSS-LEVEL INVESTIGATION

Year 2016, Volume: 4 , 550 - 553, 01.09.2016

Nuri Nakiboğlu Canan Nakiboğlu

Abstract

In
this study, it was aimed to explore all level university chemistry students,
from freshmen to the students who graduated from the university chemistry
departments, how students define the concepts of density, concentration, and
solvation which are the fundamental and basic concepts of chemistry.
Qualitative data were gathered in a test composed of 3 open-ended questions
distributed to 135 university students comprising two different academic
institutions: Education faculty and science and art faculty. Students were
asked to provide a written description of three concepts. The data were
analyzed by using both content analysis method and a concept-evaluation scheme.
It was found that students had different understanding levels concerning three
concepts and problems to the description of them. To add, students had the
problem concerning the concept of mass which is a pre-requisite concept for
density. The reason for the students’ difficulties with density and
concentration can be related to nature of these concepts that involve
proportional reasoning.

 

Keywords

University students, understanding, density, concentration, solvation

References

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