International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education (Mar 2015)
The effects of classic and web-designed conceptual change texts on the subject of water chemistry
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to research the effects of traditional and web-assisted conceptual change texts for the subject of water chemistry on the success, conceptual errors and permanent learning of students. A total of 37 8th graders in a secondary school of Samsun participated in this study which had a random experimental design with pre–test and post-test groups. With the three-stage conceptual success test developed by the researchers, a pilot scheme was conducted with 103 participants (9th graders). As a result of this scheme, the test’s validity and reliability was completed and traditional conceptual change texts based on the determinated conceptual errors were prepared. In addition, this test was applied to students as pre-test at the beginning of the study. Classical conceptual change texts that were prepared were taught with traditional methods in control group’s lessons. On the other hand, traditional conceptual change texts were prepared web-assisted and the experimental group was taught by using web-assisted conceptual change texts. At the end of the study, three-stage conceptual success test was conducted on the sample again as post-test. The data collected was analyzed by using SPSS and Microsoft Office Excel 2007 package program. As a result of the study, it was found that conceptual change texts caused a decrease in the conceptual errors of students on the subject of water chemistry. This improvement was 65% for the experimental group and 14% for the control group. In addition, even after three months, this rate was 61% for the experimental group and 3,8 % for the control group. Web-assisted conceptual change texts were found to be more effective in the permanence of what is learned
