M. O. Simões, M. C. F. Magalhães, M. Gabriela T. C. Ribeiro, Solubility in the secondary school from the laboratory to the theory, 16th International Conference on Chemical Education, Hungria, Agosto, 2000, Proceedings, 279.
2000-08-05

Autores:
M. O. Simões*
M. C. F. Magalhães*
M. Gabriela T. C. Ribeiro

Instituições:
REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto.
* Universidade de Aveiro.

Resumo:
This study involves research to explore students ideas on solubility of gases in water, on the solubility of liquids and solids in solvents other than water, and its importance on biological processes, on everyday life situations and its environmental impact. Is also an aim of the study to understand how the students explain the particles interactions at microscopic level when solutions are formed. The research methodology uses the POE (Predic-Observe-Explain) technic in diagnosing students understanding of the solubility concepts. Data sources are obtained by semistructured interviews with a sample of 15 students that had just finished the secondary level of their curriculum (aged 17-18). A pilot study with 5 students was made in order to stablish the suitability of the experiments to the correct interview time and adjusted to the cognitive level of thinking of this students age. Every situation presented to the students is in the format of experiments, that can be either performed by the students or presented in another form as data show, pictures, video, etc.. Two important observations arose from this project: - those students in spite of having finished an important cycle of their studies, which is the one that prepares them to the future access to the universitary education, maintain many of their prior knowledge which affect a lot of times their predictions, observations and explanations of the presented phenomena. This prior ideas are in general far from those that actually are accepted by the scientific community and some of them in a very contradictory way. - The interviewees, even knowing the meaning of some solubility concepts, in a academic way, showed a great difficulty yo apply them to everyday life contexts or to other aread of scientific knowledge.

References
(1) Birk,James P.; Kurtz, Martha J.(1999). Effect of Experience on Retention and Elimination of Misconceptions about Molecular Structure and Bonding, J.Chem.Educ., vol76,nº1,Jan.p124-128.
(2) Longden,k.;Black,P.;Solomon,J.(1991). Children’s Interpretation of dissolving .Int.J.Sci.Education,vol13,nº1,59-68.