Rate of reaction
To inform approaches to teaching about chemical change researchers from the UK and Turkey have studied young people's understanding of reaction rate
The research sample consisted of two groups, 108 15-16-year olds and 83 university students from Turkey. Open-ended diagnostic questions were designed to determine students' ability to express scientific knowledge and to check their ability to use this knowledge to generate explanations in different contexts.
According to the researchers, school students tended to use macroscopic modelling, rather than particulate and/or mathematical modelling, to describe the effects of concentration or pressure on reaction rates. Also they tended to give explanations based on everyday knowledge that were often repetition of information given in the question. By contrast undergraduates provided explanations based on theoretical models and established chemical ideas.
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