Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of different problem-solving strategies on freshman university students' achievements of quantitative problems in a general chemistry course. In order to identify students' achievements of quantitative problems in chemistry, the Quantitative Problem-solving Achievement Test consisting of 20 multiple-choice items was developed and administered to 150 students as pre-and-post tests. The results of ANCOVA indicated that the students' achievements of quantitative problems in the Polya's problem-solving strategy incorporating with cooperative learning approach were better than the students' achievement of quantitative problems in traditional problem-solving and the Polya's problem-solving strategies. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that this approach helps the development of students' problem-solving skills and achievements because using the Polya's problem-solving strategy with cooperative learning may increase verbal interaction among students. Some recommendations to improve students' problem-solving-skills are given in the lights of the findings and previous research findings.

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