11. SINIF ÖĞRENCİLERİNİN BİLİŞSEL YAPILARINDAKİ DEĞİŞİMİN KELİME İLİŞKİLENDİRME TESTİ KULLANARAK İNCELENMESİ: KİMYASAL DENGE ÖRNEĞİ

AN INVESTIGATION OF CHANGES IN THE COGNITIVE STRUCTURES OF 11TH GRADE STUDENTS USING THE WORD ASSOCIATION TEST: THE CASE OF CHEMICAL EQUILIBRIUM

Özet

Bilişsel yapılar, öğrenenlerin özel bir bilgi alanında ne bildiklerini değerlendirme fırsatı sunmaktadırlar. Bu yüzden, yeni bilginin yapılandırılmasını etkileyebilecek bilişsel yapıların tanımlanması ve öğretim ile bunların nasıl değiştiğinin incelenmesi önemlidir. Bu çalışmada 11. sınıf öğrencilerinin (15-16 yaş) kimyasal denge ünitesinin temel kavramlarına ilişkin bilişsel yapılarını ortaya çıkarmak ve bunların öğretim sonrası nasıl değiştiğini ortaya koymak amacıyla kelime ilişkilendirme testi kullanılmıştır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, İzmir il merkezindeki bir ortaöğretim kurumundaki 11. sınıflardaki 30 öğrenci ile bir çalışma yürütülmüştür. Çalışmada veri toplama aracı olarak, 10 uyarıcı kelimeyi içeren kelime ilişkilendirme testi öğretim öncesi ve sonrası uygulanmıştır. Testte kullanılan uyarıcı kelimeler: "denge", "katalizör", "endotermik tepkime", "egzotermik tepkime", "basınç", "molar derişim", "tersinir tepkime", "maksimum düzensizlik", "ileri tepkime hızı", "geri tepkime hızı" dır. Verilerin analizinde, her bir uyarıcı kelimeye verilen cevaplar sayılmış, frekans tablosu hazırlanmış ve farklı kesme noktalarındaki zihin haritaları çizilmiştir. Çalışmanın sonuçları, öğrencilerin öğretim öncesi zihin haritalarında çoğunlukla denge kavramını terazi ve eşitlik gibi cevaplar ile fiziksel denge ile ilişkilendirme eğiliminde olduklarını göstermektedir. Aynı zamanda, öğretim öncesinde "maksimum düzensizlik" ve " tersinir tepkime" uyarıcı kelimelerinin zihin haritalarında yer almadığı, diğer uyarıcı kelimeler arasında da çok az bağlantının kurulabildiği saptanmıştır. Buna karşın öğretim sonrasında ise, öğrenciler denge kavramını kimyasal denge ile ilişkilendirebilmişler, tüm uyarıcı kelimler zihin haritalarında saptanabilmiş ve öğrencilerin uyarıcı kelimeler arasında daha fazla ilişki kurabildikleri saptanmıştır. Bu bulgular, 11. sınıf öğrencilerinin "kimyasal dengeye" yönelik bilişsel yapılarının öğretim sonrası olumlu yönde değiştiğini göstermektedir.

Abstract

Cognitive structures offer an opportunity to assess what learners know with respect to a particular area of knowledge. It is therefore important to identify the cognitive structures that may also influence the structuring of new knowledge and examine how these change with instruction. This study used the word association test to reveal the cognitive structures of 11th grade students in the context of the basic concepts taught in the unit on chemical equilibrium and to understand how these changed after the instruction. In line with this goal, a study was conducted with 30 students enrolled in the 11th grade of a secondary school in the city of Izmir. In collecting data for the study, an association test consisting of ten stimulus words was implemented before and after the instruction. The stimulus words used in the test were, "equilibrium", "catalyzer", "endothermic reaction", "exothermic reaction", "pressure", "molar concentration", "reversible reaction", "maximum disorder", "rate of forward reaction" and "rate of reverse reaction". In the analysis, responses for each stimulus word is counted, a frequencies table is prepared, and mind maps with different cut-off points were drawn up. The results of the study indicated that students were most likely to associate the concept of equilibrium with physical equilibrium in their mind maps before the instruction, responding with words such as "weighing scale" or "balance". At the same time, it was found that the stimulus words "maximum disorder" and "reverse reaction" did not appear in their mind maps and that the responses given to the other concept stimuli revealed very few associations between them before the instruction. Following the instruction however, the students were able to associate the concept of equilibrium with chemical equilibrium; all the stimulus words on the mental map were defined and it was seen that the students were able to form substantially moreassociations between the stimulus words. These findings show that the cognitive structures of the 11th grade students with respect to "chemical equilibrium" changed positively after the instruction. STRUCTURED ABSTRACT Introduction Learners’ cognitive structures has important role in the field of science and chemistry education with the effects of the constructivist learning approach. According to constructivist approach, it is important to know what students know when they come into the classroom to design effective learning environments (Siegler, 1998). For this reason, identifing leaners’ cognitive structures has great importance in the learning process. Thus, Nakiboğlu (2008) stated that cognive structures help educators to understand how the learners’ knowledge change during the learning process. There are many techniques have been used to identify learners’ cognitive structures such as concept maps, flow maps, structured grids, mind maps, and word association test (Kinchin and Hay, 2005; Novak and Gowin, 1984; Anderson and Demetrius, 1993; Tsai, 2001; Tsai and Huang, 2002, Dhindsa, Kasim and Anderson, 2011). Within these techniques, word association test (WAT) has been used by many researchers over the years (Cachapuz and Maskill, 1987; Johnstone and Moynihan, 1985; Kaya and Akış, 2015) . According to these studies, WAT is very useful to identify concepts, and relationship between these concepts in learners’ minds (Bahar, Johnstone and Sutcliffe, 1999; Bahar and Özatlı, 2003) . In chemistry education, WAT was used in many studies, however, there is still a need for studies invesitigating how learners’ cognitive stuctures change with the effects of the instruction. The Purpose of The Study The purpose of this study is to understand students' cognitive structures regarding the topic of chemical equilibrium by using word association test, and to identify how students' cognitive structures are affected by the instruction. In the line of this purpose, these questions were answered in the study:  What concepts did the students have in their cognitive structures about the basic concepts related to the unit on chemical equilibrium before the instruction?  Has there been a change in the students' cognitive structure regarding the basic concepts in the unit on chemical equilibrium after the instruction? If so, what kind of changes have there been. Methodology This research was based on one-group pre-test/post-test study. In this design, before instruction, the Word Association Test (WAT) was applied as a pre-test in the group, after the topic of chemical equilibrium began to be taught. The same test was employed as a post-test one week after the instruction. Sample The study sample included 30, 11th grade students who were studying in a secondary school in Izmir, Turkey. All students had volunteered to participate in the study, and they had similar backgrounds. The ages of the students ranged from 15 to 16 years. Instrument The data of this study was collected through a Word Association Test (WAT). WAT was administered as a pre-test and post-test to all groups. To conduct the WAT, ten key terms selected as cornerstones of chemical equilibrium were selected by the researchers. These key terms acted as stimuli. These were “equilibrium", "rate of forward reaction", "rate of reverse reaction", "catalyzer", "pressure", "molar concentration", "maximum disorder", "endothermic reaction", "exothermic reaction", "reversible reaction" Analysis In the analysis of WAT, three steps were followed. These are: 1. Analyzing the response words for each stimulus word 2. Counting the response words for each stimulus word and preparing a frequency table. 3. Drawing of mind maps. In the first stage, the researchers independently examined the responses to each stimulus word/phrase to check whether they were meaningful or not. After that, the Miles and Huberman (1994) formula was used to calculate the percentage of agreement for the responses. These percentages were respectively: equilibrium (93%), rate of