Abstract:

Abstract enThe aim of this study is to investigate students’ understanding of the energy concept in chemical reactions including heat and temperature, endothermic-exothermic reactions, combustion reactions, bond energy, enthalpy, stability in chemical reactions and calorimeter. The sample consisted of 222, 10th grade students. Both qualitative and quantitative methodology was used for this investigation. A twenty-item multiple choice test was developed about the topic to measure the students’ understandings. This concept test was prepared based on students’ conceptual difficulties and misconceptions related to the energy in chemical reactions found in the literature. In addition, semi structured interviews were conducted to get deep knowledge about students’ perceptions. Results showed that for most parts, energy in chemical reactions is a difficult topic for high school students and they had various misconceptions. While some of the misconceptions were parallel to the literature findings, some of them contradicted with it. Also, some novel misconceptions were detected.

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