Conceptual understanding of 8th grade students based on big ideas: The case of measurement

One of the challenges facing geography educators at higher education institutions in South Africa is to prepare students by providing them with an integrated conceptual and pedagogical toolkit that would adequately equip them to teach a type of geography that is current and relevant to local (but also global) environmental and social phenomena. As an intra-disciplinary science, Geography offers multiple avenues for fostering this type of integration, yet as argued elsewhere, [1] because of a fragmented school Geography curriculum, teacher educators struggle to foster holistic and integrated learning among novice student teachers. In fact, academic geographers most often privilege their own field of specialisation rather than work towards integration [2]. Ultimately, this perpetuates a fragmented teaching practice and conceptual understanding of geographical phenomena. This paper provides a theoretical exploration to demonstrate how Geography Education could retain its holistic nature and advance integration by (re)turning to its own intra-disciplinarity. It was found that the notion of “place” (one of Geography’s big ideas) could serve as a potential point of departure for fostering integrated thinking in the discipline. The argument is made that place-based approaches offer fertile avenues to pursue in Geography Education programmes for equipping student teachers with a holistic conceptual and pedagogical toolkit.

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Determining Students’ Conceptual Understandings of Physics Concepts

Shanlax International Journal of Education ◽

10.34293/education.v8i3.2908 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 1-5

Author(s):

Gulbin Ozkan ◽

Unsal Umdu Topsakal

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Research ◽

Content Analysis ◽

High Schools ◽

Data Collection ◽

Conceptual Understanding ◽

Research Method ◽

Data Collection Tool ◽

Student Responses ◽

Qualitative Research Method ◽

8Th Grade

In this study, it was aimed to determine the students’ conceptual understanding and misconceptions about the concepts in the 8th grade Matter and Properties unit. Students (n = 180) of two high schools in Istanbul Province participated in the study. The qualitative research method was used to determine students’ conceptual understanding. A paper-and-pencil questionnaire consisting of six questions was applied as a data collection tool. Student responses to the questionnaires were subcategories by content analysis, and the percentages of the responses were determined. As a result of the findings obtained from the study, it was seen that 8th-grade students had some conceptual deficiencies and misconceptions about pressure and buoyancy.

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Investigating the presence of misconceptions of 8th grade students through multiple-choice questions at national chemistry competition test

Macedonian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering ◽

10.20450/mjcce.2017.1257 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 36 (2) ◽

pp. 279

Author(s):

Marina Stojanovska ◽

Vladimir M. Petruševski

Keyword(s):

Organic Chemistry ◽

Conceptual Understanding ◽

Chemical Reactions ◽

National Curriculum ◽

Multiple Choice ◽

Multiple Choice Questions ◽

Test Items ◽

School Year ◽

8Th Grade ◽

State Of Matter

A study was conducted to test the level of conceptual understanding of certain chemistry concepts defined in the national curriculum in Macedonia among 8th grade students who participated in the National chemistry competition in the 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 the multiple-choice questions was performed in order to categorize students’ achievements in four areas of conceptual understanding (satisfactory conceptual understanding, roughly adequate performance, inadequate performance, and quite inadequate performance) according to the percentage of students who correctly answered the test items. Furthermore, the findings revealed three misconceptions and several vague and erroneous notions present in students’ minds.

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Complex Problem Solving and Worked Examples

Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie ◽

10.1024/1010-0652.23.2.129 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 129-138 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Florian Schmidt-Weigand ◽

Martin Hänze ◽

Rita Wodzinski

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Cognitive Load ◽

Learning Experience ◽

Worked Examples ◽

Complex Problem ◽

Complex Problem Solving ◽

Strategic Learning ◽

Learning Behavior ◽

Worked Example ◽

8Th Grade

How can worked examples be enhanced to promote complex problem solving? N = 92 students of the 8th grade attended in pairs to a physics problem. Problem solving was supported by (a) a worked example given as a whole, (b) a worked example presented incrementally (i.e. only one solution step at a time), or (c) a worked example presented incrementally and accompanied by strategic prompts. In groups (b) and (c) students self-regulated when to attend to the next solution step. In group (c) each solution step was preceded by a prompt that suggested strategic learning behavior (e.g. note taking, sketching, communicating with the learning partner, etc.). Prompts and solution steps were given on separate sheets. The study revealed that incremental presentation lead to a better learning experience (higher feeling of competence, lower cognitive load) compared to a conventional presentation of the worked example. However, only if additional strategic learning behavior was prompted, students remembered the solution more correctly and reproduced more solution steps.

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