Analysis of Turkish high school chemistry textbooks and teacher-generated questions about gas laws

Abstract

This study presents the results of an analysis of high school chemistry textbooks and teacher-generated questions about gas laws. The materials that were analyzed consisted of 456 questions about gas laws found in seven grade 10 chemistry textbooks and 264 teacher-generated examination questions prepared by seven chemistry teachers from three schools. These questions were classified into three categories (recall, algorithmic, and conceptual); the conceptual questions (ConQ) were further classified into six subcategories (particulate, demonstration, tiered, laboratory, analogy, and series completion) using the descriptions provided on the Conceptual Questions and Challenge Problems website. The findings indicate that most of the textbook questions were algorithmic and that these textbooks were less likely to facilitate or encourage student comprehension of the properties and behaviors of gases or gas law theories. Furthermore, most of the textbook questions do not enable students to develop conceptual understanding and gain higher-order cognitive skills. Although the findings imply that most of the teacher-generated questions were ConQ, the large majority were partially conceptual type questions. The major implication of this research is the need for teachers, textbook writers, and academics to consider question types when creating questions or analyzing chemistry questions at all educational levels.