Investigating the Ability of 8th Grade Students to Design an Experiment Through Guidelines as a Part of the National Chemistry Competition Test
Investigating the Ability of 8th Grade Students to Design an Experiment Through Guidelines as a Part of the National Chemistry Competition Test

Summary/Abstract: A study was conducted to test the ability of 8th grade studentsto design an experiment using previously provided guidelines. The sample comprised 64 students chosen to participate at the National chemistry competition in 2016/17 school year.The students were tested on the following topics: state of matter; metals and non-metals; elementary substances, compounds and mixtures; chemical reactions and introduction to organic chemistry.An analysis of students’ scores was performed, but the qualitative analysis of their answers and drawings was of great importance in such way that it helped the authors to get deeper insight into students’ thinking processes and to further understand the origin of their misunderstandings. The findings showed quite high achievements. Still, many misunderstandings, erroneous notions and lack of conceptual and procedural knowledge were detected among students. Most problems were observed in answering the item III-3, while the greatest success was noticed in the itemII. Many students did not have firm knowledge and clear awareness about the process of boiling –they did not appreciate the presence of both liquid and gaseous form of the substance at the boiling point, could not determine the boiling point of a liquid using the heating curve and were not able to locate the point on the curve where boiling occurs.

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