Database of Publications

Date: 2013.07.25

Posted by Giorgio Matricardi (Italy)

Message: The paper describes a study about what extent Turkish chemistry teachers use laboratory effectively and their perceptions on laboratory applications. The findings revealed that the teachers’ perceptions on laboratory applications vary according to their self-efficacy beliefs in laboratory applications, the type of school they graduated, the type of school they are working at, their experience in teaching, the school physical conditions and chemistry program. As an example, the teachers from Anatolian high schools mostly like open-ended experiments while the teachers from vocational and state high schools prefer closed-end experiments.
The publication is important because it is focused on the important role of the laboratory practice in order to develop students’ scientific skills and to show the relations between chemistry, technology and society. Indeed, practical activities involve students as the first person and allow teachers to show the concrete aspect of chemistry and its important role in everyday life as well as in the development of technology and society. Moreover, the teaching approach in the lab needs to be student-centered, because it is not the trivial performance following a recipe, but it asks students to design, collect data, discuss the result and make hypothesis: in this way it develops scientific skills.
Chemistry teachers seem to have a positive attitude towards laboratory practice and they also show interest for the use of virtual laboratory environments. However, it is important to underlines that virtual laboratories can not take the place of real practical experience and teachers have to be trained to order to suitably use both the approaches: the real laboratory has to be used every time it is possible, while the virtual experience should integrate the teaching when dangerous/expensive substances are involved or when the laboratory equipment is not sufficient.

Date: 2013.06.05

Posted by Eva Lisá (Slovakia)

Message: This article reports the results of a research project administered among 408 teachers which aims in examining the perceptions of the chemistry teachers related to laboratory applications and the factors that influence these perceptions. 408 chemistry teachers responded; 22 of them were employed in Science high schools, 119 in public high schools, 138 in Anatolian high schools, 88 in vocational high schools and 41 in other types of high schools in Izmir. During the study two types of questionnaires are used:1) to evaluate the scale of chemistry teachers’ perceptions’ and 2) to assess the factors affecting laboratory applications. The data acquired is statistically analyzed using ANOVA and t – Test.The main goal of the study presented is to reveal the chemistry teachers attitude to laboratory experiments ant their role in chemistry education of students. Therefore the topic fits very well to mail aims of project subsection “teaches training”. The publication points out the important role of the laboratory practice so that the students can develop scientific skills. The main aims of the Turkish Ministry of Education were the development of scientific skills and of the relations between chemistry-technology-society and the environment. In general, Chemistry teachers in Turkey have a positive attitude to laboratory practice as part of the students\\\' training in Chemistry. According to them the lab is a unique environment where students can be involved in various activities. The teaching approach should place the student in the centre of the educational process and should include interesting experiments related to daily life, customs of people and environment. In this way the students can develop their ability to understand concepts, collect data and think like researchers. The article conclusion is nothing new to research in chemistry teaching; it states ‘that in order to make use of laboratories effectively the perceptions of chemistry teachers need to be considered and necessary regulations and developments should be performed in chemistry curriculum and at settings of schools. The study’s conclusion also reinforces what is continually recommended from research findings that ‘chemistry teachers should be provided with frequent and effective in-service courses. Authors confirm previous findings of other researchers that even in case of well-equipped laboratories, teachers do not efficiently used them because of the teachers’ lack of experimental skills and their “incomplete knowledge about laboratory equipment”. Therefore in-service teachers need competency-based training to improve their qualifications

Date: 2013.05.30

Posted by DANIELA PETROVA (Bulgaria)

Message: This publication presents the results from a research project applied to 408 Chemistry teachers from secondary schools in Turkey. The attitude of teachers towards laboratory applications significantly differ depending on their personal beliefs, the type of school they completed, the type of school they work for, their teaching experience, etc. According to teachers laboratory practice is not very effective for improving chemistry literacy of students due to several reasons: shortage of time, appropriate design and materials; insufficient preparation of students; negative attitude of teachers; problems referring to managing the class and applying health and safety working conditions in a laboratory environment; etc.
The preliminary preparation of the lab experiments may turn out to be a problem for some teachers who do not possess good professional competences to carry them out.
In general, Chemistry teachers in Turkey have a positive attitude to laboratory practice as part of the students\' training in Chemistry. According to them the lab is a unique environment where students can be involved in various activities. The teaching approach should place the student in the centre of the educational process and should include interesting experiments related to daily life, customs of people and environment. In this way the students can develop their ability to understand concepts, collect data and think like researchers. However, in order to achieve this effect, a number of problems should be solved.
An effective method for raising students\' interest in chemical analyses is the use of virtual labs. It is an important step when building lab skills in students. However, the application of this approach may cause some problems and may appear too sophisticated. Teachers must be trained to use these computer applications and to create lessons with their help. It is necessary to create optimal conditions for building competences in students, which have to be a unity of chemistry knowledge and lab skills. Along with this Chemistry teachers must know the required educational regulations which regulate the performance of lab analyses. It is necessary to update the curricula in Chemistry, to upgrade the equipment so that it corresponds to the needs for conducting virtual and real life experiments, and to provide possibilities for Chemistry teachers to attend qualification courses.

Date: 2013.05.30

Posted by Maria Nikolova (Bulgaria)

Message: The paper considers the results of training of over 400 secondary school Chemistry teachers. The training is related to the application of laboratory and simulation experiments in Chemistry teaching in secondary schools in Izmir, Turkey. The paper presents the realized necessity for lifelong teacher training in relation to the introduction of ICT in schools, the change of attitudes and the difficulties that the young people come across when apprehending non-visualized teaching materials. It also views the need for teachers\' competence in ICT and state-of-the-art software. The training highlights lab experiments - the form they are applied, the skills and competences that should be built in school students. A special emphasis is placed on the individual laboratory work and its organization. Demo experiments are preferred only if there are not any conditions for individual work in the lab. The following is viewed:
• The absolute necessity for conducting experiments - real-life or computer-simulated experiments in Chemistry classes;
• The attitude of teachers to the performance of experiments;
• The necessity for good equipment and premises in order to do the experiments;
• The relationship between modern teaching methods and high motivation of students to study Chemistry;
• The correlation between the number of years of teaching experience and the attitude to the lab experiments.
The opportunities for wide use of ICT or only the use of computers in Chemistry teaching - something which is available today in Bulgarian schools.
In this respect Chemistry teachers must know modern computer technologies.

Date: 2013.05.22

Posted by Michelle Starr (Ireland)

Message: This study is relevant in the Irish context. It aims to reveal to what extent Turkish chemistry teachers use laboratories effectively and their percep¬tions on laboratory applications and the factors related to laboratory applications.

The literature review summary reinforces well established research findings on the relevance for laboratory experiments in chemistry teaching to develop students’ scientific processing skills. It states that laboratory applications should include ‘activities that allow students to make choices with explora¬tory actions, that should be learner-centered, com¬prise of before and after experiment studies, and be exciting and connected with real-life’.

The paper does not go into detail on the study method other than it was undertaken through questionnaires online. 408 chemistry teachers responded; 22 of them were employed in Science high schools, 119 in public high schools, 138 in Anatolian high schools, 88 in vocational high schools and 41 in other types of high schools in Izmir. The teachers’ years of teaching experience was detailed.
The paper does not give detailed results, only statements that the teachers’ perceptions on laboratory applica¬tions significantly vary according to their self-effi¬cacy beliefs in laboratory applications, the type of school they graduated from, the type of the school they are working at, their experience in teaching, their schools’ physical conditions and assessment-evaluation techniques and chemistry program. It tells us that the type of experiments they use and the type of their schools are significantly correlated however their experience in teaching, the type of school they graduated, the type of experiment they use are significantly uncorrelated.
The paper does not go into any detail on the experiments used, the types of schools, the assessment techniques or the chemistry programme. The paper tells us with no explanations that ‘teachers from Anatolian high schools mostly choose open-ended experiments while the others form vocational and state high schools choose closed-end experiments and that all teachers in the survey prefer hypothesis-based experiments’.

The papers conclusion is nothing new to research in chemistry teaching; it states ‘that in order to make use of laboratories effectively the percep¬tions of chemistry teachers need to be considered and necessary regulations and developments should be performed in chemistry curriculum and at set¬tings of schools’. The study’s conclusion also reinforces what is continually recommended from research findings that ‘chemistry teachers should be provided with frequent and effective in-service courses’. It also recommends that students’ scientific processing skills and problem solving skills should be assessed.

Date: 2013.05.22

Posted by Samir Naimov (Bulgaria)

Message: The article reviewed, published in an international scientific journal, is prepared in very professional way by research team from three Turkish universities: Ege University, Docuz Eylul University, and Adnan Menderes University. The main goal of the study presented is to reveal the chemistry teachers attitude to laboratory experiments ant heir role in chemistry education of students. Therefore the topic fits very well to mail aims of project subsection “teaches training”. Despite the fact hat survey has been conducted only among teachers from Izmir the conclusions drown may be valid for most of the large cities in Turkey. The research team is focused in study of three main relations: 1) between chemistry teachers’ perceptions on laboratory applications and term planning; 2) between chemistry teachers’ perceptions and existing laboratory and training facilities; and 3) between chemistry teachers’ perceptions and teachers capabilities in laboratory applications. In order to reveal those relations a large grope of teachers has been interviewed. During the research over of four hundred questionnaires has been analyzed. Teachers from different types of schools have been involved in study: teachers from science high schools, form public high schools, form Anatolian high schools, form vocational high schools, and form other high schools in Izmir. The age distribution among the teachers is as follows: 28 teachers with teaching experience between 1-5 years, 61 with experience between 6 and 10 years, 104 with 11 to 15 years of experience, 116 with experience between 16 and 20 years, 65 with 21-25 years of practice, and 32 teachers wit more than 26 years of teaching experience. During the study two types of questionnaires are used:1) to evaluate the scale of chemistry teachers’ perceptions’ and 2) to assess the factors affecting laboratory applications. The data acquired is statistically analyzed using ANOVA and t – Test. In the results section the authors highlights that all teachers interviewed do prefer hypothesis based experiments. Interestingly the teachers from Anatolian high school do prefer open ended experiment while others do prefer closed-end experiments. It is also remarkable that the teachers with more than 26 years teaching experience do have positive attitude toward laboratory applications in chemistry while the younger teachers do demonstrates a negative perception.

Date: 2013.05.22

Posted by Adriana Tafrova-Grigorova (Bulgaria)

Message: This paper concerns a very important issue in chemistry education – the use of experiments in chemistry classes. Studies on the attitudes and practices of chemistry teachers to use chemical experiments in their classes are of great interest for all educators and teachers involved in chemistry education. It is well known that the on-hands laboratory activities as well as chemical demonstrations are extremely powerful instrument to raise student’s motivation and interest in chemistry school subject as well as to develop a variety of skills such as observation, designing and testing of a hypothesis, analyzing of the findings and drawing of conclusions. The paper presents a study which reveals to what extent chemistry teachers are willing to make use of laboratories, how they are able to use effectively them, teachers’ perceptions on the school laboratory experiments and which factors affect the application of the experimental work in the school laboratory.
The studied sample consists of 463 chemistry teachers from various secondary schools in the city of Izmir, Turkey. The instruments used are two questionnaires: Scale of chemistry teachers’ perceptions on laboratory applications and Questionnaire of the factors effecting laboratory applications. It would be advantageous for the exposition if those questionnaires would be present as attachment in an appendix to the paper. It is not mentioned either what the validity of these tools is. The results show that teachers’ perceptions on laboratory applications significantly vary due to a lot of factors: teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in laboratory applications, the type of school they graduated from, the type of the school they are teaching at, their experience as teachers, the school laboratory environment and equipment for carrying out of experiments in their schools, assessment techniques and chemistry programmes. Authors confirm previous findings of other researchers that even in case of well-equipped laboratories, teachers do not efficiently used them because of the teachers’ lack of experimental skills and their “incomplete knowledge about laboratory equipment”. Therefore in-service teachers need competency-based training to improve their qualifications.

Date: 2013.05.07

Posted by Korfios Vagelis (Greece)

Message: This document reports the results of a research project administered among 408 teachers (mainly in lower secondary school) which aims in examining the perceptions of the chemistry teachers related to laboratory applications and the factors that influence these perceptions.

The publication points out the important role of the laboratory practice so that the students can develop scientific skills. The main aims of the Turkish Ministry of Education were the development of scientific skills and of the relations between chemistry-technology-society and the environment.

The lab is a unique environment where the student can engage in different activities. The teaching approach in the lab needs to be student-centered and involve fascinating experiments that are related with everyday life reality. In this way, the students can develop their ability to understand concepts, to collect data, to relate different variables and to think like researchers.

In the case when the lab does not seem to help in increasing chemical literacy, this can be attributed to the following factors: lack of time and suitable design, lack of materials, insufficient student preparation, negative attitude of the teacher, problems related with management of the class and with safety precautions. The preparation of the lab seems to be problematic for some teachers who also have insufficient related knowledge. This is an important issue (lack of teacher training) which is often relevant in the Greek reality as well.

In my opinion, one of the very interesting findings of this publication is the strong relationship that was found between the degree of the lab use and the attitudes of the teachers towards the laboratory applications. In this way, teachers’ experience (with the teachers having 11-15 years of experience being the most negative and the ones with >26 years being the least negative) seems to play a very important role.

Chemistry teachers seem to have a positive attitude towards laboratory practice involving demonstration experiments. They also show interest for the use of virtual laboratory environments. However, there is need for training of the teachers on the use of these computer applications and for the setting up of a lesson by using this teaching approach. The availability of these applications is an important first step. Their implementation in the teaching practice can be problematic and not so straightforward. In the end, the student has to also develop his/her practical laboratory skills and not solely acquire knowledge..