International Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications

11-13 November, 2010 Antalya-Turkey ISBN: 978 605 364 104 9

Analyzing of Students Misconceptions About Chemical Equilibrium

Glten ENDUR, Dokuz Eyll University, Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics
Education, Izmir, [email protected]
Mustafa TOPRAK, Dokuz Eyll University, Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics
Education, Izmir, [email protected]
Esin AHN PEKMEZ, Ege University, Department of Primary Education, Izmir,
[email protected]

Abstract

Many students have some difficulties in understanding chemistry since many chemical
concepts abstract and complex. Consequently, students could construct concepts
differ from scientific explanation which is named as misconceptions. Identifying
misconceptions is the first step to prevent these misconceptions. In this study, the
goal is to describe 11th grade students misconceptions about chemical equilibrium.
The participants of the study consisted of 151 students who studied in 11th grade at
three different high schools in Izmir. Chemical equilibrium misconceptions test (KR-
20=0,79) was developed to identify students understanding of chemical equilibrium.
The results showed that most of the students had misconceptions in the areas related
to approach to equilibrium and changing equilibrium conditions.

Keywords: Chemical Equilibrium, Chemistry Education, Misconception

INTRODUCTION

There have been a lot of studies conducted in chemistry education. Many of these studies
were interested in students understanding concerning phenomena taught in chemistry. These studies
results show that students come to class with their existing knowledge that they construct with their
experiences or formal learning (Fetherstonhaugh & Treagust, 1992). Students this prior knowledge is
called as preconceptions. Some of these preconceptions are in conflict with the scientific view.
Preconceptions which are in conflict with the scientific view are called as misconceptions.

According to Mulford and Robinson (2002), misconceptions play a larger role in learning
chemistry than simply producing inadequate explanations to questions. Students either consciously or
subconsciously construct their concepts as explanations for the behavior, properties they experience.
They believe most of these explanations are correct because these explanations make sense in terms
of their understanding of the behavior of the world around them. Consequently, if students encounter
new information that contradicts their alternative conceptions it may be difficult for them to accept the
new information because it seems wrong. In this way, students misconceptions can interfere with
learning process. Accordingly, to provide conceptual understanding and conceptual change, students
misconceptions should be considered while teaching and learning (Cotu, Ayas & Niaz, 2010). With
this aim, students misconceptions must be determined in the phase of preventing the misconceptions.
To prevent students misconceptions, firstly, the teachers must learn the students existing knowledge
before teaching. Some of the methods such as concept maps, prediction-observation-explanation,
interview about the events and the instances, interview about the concepts, drawings, word
assosaciation and diagnostic tests can be used to determine of students misconceptions (Ayas et all,
2001; Schmidt, 1997). Secondly, teachers should use more effective teaching strategies to prevent
misconceptions and promote conceptual change (zmen, 2008).

Since most of the chemistry concepts are abstract and their daily life terminology and
scientific terminology are different, many students at all levels struggle to learn chemistry (Erdemir,
Geban & Uzuntiryaki, 2000; zmen, 2004) It has been determined that the students misconceptions
intensify on the abstract concepts such as mole concept, atom, molecule, chemical equilibrium,
chemical bonding, electro-chemistry and phase changes (Bar & Travis, 1991; Griffiths & Preston,
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International Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications
11-13 November, 2010 Antalya-Turkey ISBN: 978 605 364 104 9

1992; Novick & Nussbaum, 1981; Wheeler & Kass, 1978). However, students misconceptions are
mostly about chemical equilibrium among these subjects.

Chemical equilibrium is one of the basic subjects in the chemistry as this subject is related to
other areas of chemistry like solubility, electro-chemistry, and acid-base. So, if a student has
misconceptions about chemical equilibrium, these misconceptions can interfere with subsequent
learning. Therefore, it is important that determining of students misconceptions about chemical
equilibrium. Several studies have shown that students have different concepts about chemical
equilibrium those held by scientist (Banerjee, 1991; Griffiths, 1994; Quilez & Solaz, 1995; zmen,
2008). Some of the misconceptions are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Identified Misconceptions about Chemical Equilibrium

Identified Misconceptions Revealed by

The rate of the forward reaction is greater

than the reverse one at equilibrium. Griffiths (1994)
No reaction occurs at equilibrium.
A catalyst affects the rates of the forward
and reverse reactions differently.
Concentration of the products or reactants
change with addition of a catalyzer.

When one of the reactives is added,

Equilibrium always shifts to products side.
When a solid substance is added to
a heterogeneous equilibrium system, equilibrium is disturbed. Quilez and Solaz (1995).
If a inert gas is added to equilibrium mixture,
equilibrium is never disturbed. Since inert gases do not react.

When the pressure is increased, only the rate of

favored reaction increases.
When the pressure is increased, concentrations of the products Banerjee (1991)
or reactants remains the same.

Le Chateliers principle can be applied in the initial state

Before the reaction has reached equilibrium.
When more products are added to an equilibrium system
At constant temperature, equilibrium constant will increase. zmen (2008)
Increasing the amount of a solid ionic substance that is at
Equilibrium causes more dissolved ions to be produced

The main aim of this study is to reveal secondary school students misconceptions about
chemical equilibrium.

METHOD

Sample

The sample of this study included 151, 11th grade students who were studied three different
high schools in Izmir, Turkey. It was considered to be appropriate to name the high schools with
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International Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications
11-13 November, 2010 Antalya-Turkey ISBN: 978 605 364 104 9

codes of letters (such as A, B, C) instead of using their names. Distribution of groups with respect to
the schools is presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Distribution of Groups with Respect to Schools

The Number of Participants

High School
(N)

A 53

B 38

C 60

Instrument

Chemical Equilibrium Misconceptions Test (CEMT)

In order to diagnose students misconceptions and the understanding level of students about
chemical equilibrium, a 25 multiple choice item test was developed by the researches. During the
development stage of the test, first, the instructional objectives of the unit chemical equilibrium were
stated. This step was carried out to define the content of the test. Then, students conceptual
difficulties, and misconceptions were identified from previous studies in literature, and the most
common misconceptions of light and sound concepts used in the test were stated (see Table 1). Items
of the test were constructed with respect to misconceptions obtained from literature . Each item of
the test included one correct answer and four distracters. Each item requires students to select
definition of scientifically complete response and reason of correct answer. Four different categories
which help to classify scientifically acceptable and unacceptable explanations were determined. These
categories are below:

Scientifically Correct (SC): Scientifically complete response and correct explanations take part in
this category.

Partially Correct (PC): Scientifically complete response and incorrect explanations or scientifically
incorrect response and correct explanations match this category.

Specific Misconceptions (SM): This level involves completely scientifically unacceptable response
or explanations.

No Response (NR): Students who does not choose any response and make any explanations are
put in this category.

An example of question of test item is presented in Table 3.

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International Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications
11-13 November, 2010 Antalya-Turkey ISBN: 978 605 364 104 9

Table 3. Sample Question in CEMT

The equilibrium between A gas and B gas is as follows:

aA(g) bB(g)
When volume of the container was increased at a constant temperature, reaction shifted to reactants
side. According to this, what can we say about equilibrium?
A) a>b because when volume of the container was increased, equilibrium will proceed to make
more moles of gases.
B) a>b because when volume of the container was increased, equilibrium will proceed to make
fewer moles of gases.
C) b>a because when volume of the container was increased, equilibrium will proceed to make
fewer moles of gases..
D) b>a because when volume of the container was increased, equilibrium will proceed to make
more moles of gases.
E) It cannot be estimated because moles of gases dont have any influence on equilibrium shift.

A group of expert in chemistry education and also chemistry teachers examined the test for
the appropriateness of the items as the extent to which the test measures a representative sample of
the domain of tasks with respect to the chemical equilibrium. Reliability coefficient (KR-20) of the test
was found to be 0.79 after the item analysis.

Analysis

In analyzing test items, first, students responses were analyzed with categories presented
above. Secondly, frequency and proportion of students responses were calculated and presented in
Tables. Table 4 shows percentage of students responses.

FINDINGS

Analysis of the results collected with the CEMT show that students did not acquire a
satisfactory understanding of the chemical equilibrium concept. Table 4 shows that most of the
students gave responses that fell into PC and NR categories. As seen in Table 5, the percentages
of SC category ranged from 13% to 28%. According to Gilbert (1977), Odom and Barrow (1995), if
a multiple-choice item has four to five distractors, understanding is considered satisfactory if 75% of
the students answer the item correctly. For this reason, it could be said that students did not acquire
a satisfactory understanding of the chemical equilibrium concepts. The results indicate that althought
there are some similar percentage of SC category (such as item 3, 23, 24, 25) between schools,
there are also significiant diffrences between them (such as item 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15). This
diffrence could be explained diffrence in the learning envirovement. Also, fifty misconceptions were
indentified through analysis of items on the CEMT. Some of the misconceptions are presented in Table
5.
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International Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications
11-13 November, 2010 Antalya-Turkey ISBN: 978 605 364 104 9

Table 4. Percentage of students responses

Test Categorie A High B High C High Test Categories A High B High C High
Item s School School School Item School School School
SC 21 16 20
SC 15 16 28
Item 13 PC 18 21 22
Item 1 PC 25 18 20 SM 9 13 10
SM 13 13 8 NR 52 50 48
NR 47 53 43 SC 17 18 25
SC 17 13 17 Item 14 PC 18 21 23
Item 2 PC 23 18 23 SM 11 11 8
SM 17 11 8 NR 54 50 44
NR 43 58 52 SC 19 16 27
SC 17 16 17 Item 15 PC 30 16 20
Item 3 PC 23 18 17 SM 13 13 7
SM 13 13 6 NR 38 55 46
NR 47 53 60 SC 19 21 18
SC 21 18 27 PC 25 21 23
T Item 16 SM 9 16 8
PC 25 18 17 NR 47 42 31
Item 4 SM 13 16 6 SC 15 18 22
NR 41 48 50 T Item 17 PC 13 18 25
SC 21 16 20 SM 11 11 8
T Item 5 PC 25 18 22 NR 61 53 45
SM 15 13 8 T Item 18 SC 24 21 25
NR 39 53 50 PC 26 26 18
T Item 6 SC 25 13 22 SM 9 13 10
PC 26 18 15 NR 41 40 47
SM 9 13 8 Item 19 SC 15 21 22
NR 40 56 55 PC 24 21 20
T Item 7 SC 23 16 22 SM 15 8 10
NR 46 50 48
PC 27 21 18
T Item 20 SC 24 13 23
SM 11 11 8
PC 24 18 23
NR 39 52 52
SM 6 11 10
T Item 8 SC 18 13 22
NR 46 58 44
PC 18 16 22 T Item 21 SC 19 18 17
SM 13 8 8 PC 26 24 22
NR 51 63 48 SM 11 13 10
T Item 9 SC 23 16 27 NR 44 45 51
PC 26 21 18 T Item 22 SC 26 18 23
SM 9 13 6 PC 24 29 22
NR 44 50 49 SM 11 24 10
T Item 10 SC 18 13 27 NR 39 29 45
T Item 23 SC 19 18 20
PC 21 26 22
PC 24 24 25
SM 11 13 8
SM 11 13 10
NR 50 48 43
NR 46 45 45
T Item 11 SC 15 13 22
T Item 24 SC 16 13 13
PC 26 24 22 PC 27 37 22
SM 13 11 8 SM 11 18 15
NR 46 52 48 NR 46 32 50
T Item 12 SC 21 16 23 SC 24 24 22
PC 34 26 23 Item 25 PC 19 29 23
SM 15 16 8 SM 11 16 8
NR 30 42 46 NR 46 31 47
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International Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications
11-13 November, 2010 Antalya-Turkey ISBN: 978 605 364 104 9

Table 5. Percentages of Students Misconceptions

% of Students
Misconceptions A High B High C High
School School
School
When a solid substance is added to an equilibrium system at 6 5 5
constant temperature, Keq increases.
When a solid substance is added to an equilibrium system at 8 8 3
constant temperature, Keq decreases.
When system reaches equilibrium, the rate of reverse reaction is 6 8 5
greater than the rate of forward reaction.
When more reactants are added to an equilibrium system, Keq 8 5 3
increases.
When more reactants are added to an equilibrium system, Keq 4 5 5
decreases.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

This study showed that students have difficulties in understanding chemical equilibrium
concept and appliying of Le Chatelier principle. This reveals the need to implement different teaching
materials or teaching strategies in order to help students eliminate their misconceptions.

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International Conference on New Trends in Education and Their Implications
11-13 November, 2010 Antalya-Turkey ISBN: 978 605 364 104 9

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