Students' Misconceptions about Learning Thermodynamics in Second-round High School

Document Type : Original research

Authors

Chemistry student, Department of Chemistry, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The purpose of this research, which has been done analytically-descriptively, is to investigate the misconceptions of 11th grade high school students about the concept of thermodynamics. For this purpose, 112 students were randomly selected from among the 11th grade students of the second round high school in the 15th district of Tehran in the academic year 1399-1400, all of whom were girls. In order to identify common misunderstandings of students, a questionnaire containing 10 four-choice questions was used. The questions included the concepts of thermochemistry, system and environment, temperature and heat, enthalpy, endothermic and exothermic reaction. Then, the students' answers were evaluated as data by SPSS statistical software and the results were presented and analyzed in the form of explanations. From the analysis of each question, students' misunderstandings in that subject were extracted. Based on these analyses, the topic of thermochemistry of the 11th grade high school chemistry textbook needs to be reviewed, supplemented and simplified, and the chemistry teachers can take steps to reduce and eliminate misunderstandings on the subject of thermochemistry by adopting an appropriate teaching method.

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