The effects of employing a contextual approach to teaching organic chemistry on improving conceptual understanding and knowledge application among students of a science and mathematics high school

Abstract

Since high school students tend to perceive organic chemistry as an subject that is difficult to understand, the aim of the research was to examine whether a contextual approach to teaching can improve conceptual understanding and application of knowledge from this chemistry subdiscipline among students of a high school of science and mathematics. For this purpose, a teaching experiment with parallel groups was carried out as part of instruction on the topic of Alcohols. The sample consisted of 163 third grade students at a high school of science and mathematics, with 82 students in the control group and 81 in the experimental group. The initial test, comprising problems similar to those in the textbook, showed that students in both groups had a similar level of prior knowledge about alcohols. However, in the final test, where students were expected to apply their newly acquired knowledge about alcohols to solving everyday problems and to provide a detailed explanation of the problem-solving process, students in the experimental group achieved a significantly higher overall percentage of correct responses and a significantly higher number of correct responses to most problems in the test relative to students in the control group. Since the results of the experiment indicate that a contextual approach to teaching fosters conceptual understanding and application of knowledge in the field of organic chemistry, this research could contribute to improving organic chemistry teaching in high schools of science and mathematics.

Budući da srednjoškolci organsku hemiju doživljavaju kao apstraktan predmet čije je gradivo teško za razumevanje, cilj ovog istraživanja bio je da se utvrdi da li kontekstualni pristup nastavi može da unapredi konceptualno razumevanje i primenu znanja iz ove oblasti hemije kod učenika gimnazije prirodno-matematičkog smera. Posledično, u okviru obrade nastavne teme Alkoholi, sproveden je pedagoški eksperiment sa paralelnim grupama. Uzorak su činila 163 učenika trećeg razreda gimnazije prirodno-matematičkog smera (82 učenika u kontrolnoj i 81 učenik u eksperimentalnoj grupi). Na inicijalnom testu koji je sadržao zadatke nalik onima u udžbeniku ustanovljeno je da dve grupe imaju relativno ujednačeni nivo prethodno stečenih znanja o alkoholima. Međutim, na završnom testu gde je novostečena znanja o alkoholima trebalo primeniti u rešavanju problema iz svakodnevnog života i detaljno objasniti postupak rešavanja, učenici iz eksperimentalne grupe ostvarili su statistički značajno veći ukupan procenat tačnih odgovora i statistički značajno veći broj tačnih odgovora na većini zadataka iz ovog testa u odnosu na učenike iz kontrolne grupe. S obzirom na to da rezultati eksperimenta pokazuju da kontekstualni pristup nastavi podstiče konceptualno razumevanje i primenu znanja iz organske hemije, ovo istraživanje može da doprinese unapređivanju nastave organske hemije u gimnaziji prirodno-matematičkog smera.