Chemical Education Journal (CEJ), Vol. 4, No. 1 /Registration
No. 4-13/Received February 26, 2000.
URL = http://www.juen.ac.jp/scien/cssj/cejrnlE.html
E-mail: chetsf@scc.ntnu.edu.tw
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to unravel problem-solving
strategies, problem-solving activities and the difficulties for
novice science major students in the process of solving the stereochemistry
of coordination compound problems. The study was divided into
two parts, the first part aimed to explore the correlation between
spatial perception ability and stereochemistry problem-solving
ability; the second part was to analyze the science majors' inner
process through the protocol analysis collected from thinking-aloud
and interview methods.
The 45 subjects in this study took paper and pencil tests on ability
of spatial perception and solving stereochemistry problems, and
seven of the students (two high-school, three freshmen science
majors and two sophomores) solved stereochemistry problems with
the thinking-aloud method and were videotaped. After the analysis
of the problem-solving process, the researcher discussed the differences
in behavior, activities, and process in solving stereochemistry
problems between high proficiency and low proficiency students.
The ten problems which were validated by expert professors were
concentrated on geometric isomers, optical isomers, reflection
operator, reversion operator and rotation operator.
The findings suggested that the correlation between spatial perception
ability and stereochemistry problem-solving ability is quite good
with r=.647. On average, the best performance of students was
in rotation operator. It was due to their past learning experience.
The more successful students had the better reasoning strategy.
They were more sensitive to the stereo structures, and realized
the change of the structure more correctly. The less successful
students used worse reasoning strategy and less effective trial-and-error
strategy. The latter had wrong recognition of stereo structures,
regarding optical isomer as geometric isomer; they also had bad
visualizing spatial relationship among atoms.
CEJ Vol. 4, No. 1, Contents