GRAMMAR SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARD ORGANIC CHEMISTRY AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CONTEXT-BASED APPROACH IN ORGANIC CHEMISTRY TEACHING

Узданица XVII 2 (2020), (стр. 267-279)

АУТОР(И): Katarina B. Putica

Е-АДРЕСА: 

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DOI: 10.18485/uzdanica.2020.17.2.18

САЖЕТАК:

Along with being an essential part of everyday life, organic chemistry has tremendous economic significance. Given that grammar school represents a stepping stone toward university education and professional carriers in this field, improving organic chemistry teaching at grammar school level is of great importance. Consequently, this research aimed to determine the way in which organic chemistry is typically taught in grammar school, grammar school students’ perceptions toward organic chemistry and their perceptions concerning the potential of context-based teaching approach to facilitate organic chemistry learning. Data were obtained by means of the two questionnaires, completed by 163 third year grammar school students. It was concluded that organic chemistry teaching in grammar school primarily consists of the teacher’s presentation of academic content, which is only occasionally linked to everyday life and previously acquired chemistry knowledge. At the same time, students perceive organic chemistry as abstract, difficult to understand and more difficult to learn than general and inorganic chemistry, while around 40% of students perceive the quality of their organic chemistry knowledge to be poor. Conversely, students perceive context-based organic chemistry lessons to be more interesting than their typical organic chemistry lessons and point out that such an approach to teaching could enhance their motivation to learn organic chemistry and their ability to apply organic chemistry knowledge in everyday life. Although they are not convinced that it could also improve their understanding of organic chemistry, nearly 60% of students recommend to their teachers more frequent application of context-based approach in organic chemistry teaching.

КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ:

organic chemistry, context-based teaching approach, grammar school students, questionnaires

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