ELECTROCHEMISTRY PROBLEM-SOLVING APPROACHES AND DIFFICULTIES OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

*¹John K. Eminah and ²Anthony Assafuah-Drokow

Department of Science Education

University of Education, Winneba, Ghana

ABSTRACT

The acquisition of competencies by senior high school (SHS) science students in knowledge-based and computational problem-solving is an important objective of the WAEC chemistry syllabus in support of which this study was designed. Using the think aloud and pen and paper procedure, data were collected from 26 SHS science students as they solved problems based on Faradays laws of electrolysis and related electrochemistry topics. The students’ verbalizations were audio-taped as they worked. Analysis of the data showed that most (66%) of the students were analytic in their problem-solving approach while a smaller (19%) proportion was intuitive. A few (15%) of them were however unclassified. On the whole the students performed poorly in various tasks related to Faraday’s second law of electrolysis. None of them could state the law in words and in symbols. However a few (15%) of them were able to state Faraday’s first law of electrolysis in words and in symbols. The students’ performance in computational problems, based on the laws, followed a similar trend. Misconceptions held by some of the students included the belief that protons could be used to balance negative charges in redox reactions and that strong electrolytes (e.g. AgNO₃) could only be ionized with the passage of electricity through their aqueous solutions. In sum, the findings indicate that some SHS science students lack the conceptual understanding needed to ensure success in both knowledge and numerical problem-solving in science.

Keywords: Electrochemistry, Problem-solving, Computational, Conceptual, Misconceptions