BARRIERS TO STUDENTS’ CREATIVE EVALUATION OF UNEXPECTED EXPERIMENTAL FINDINGS

TitleBARRIERS TO STUDENTS’ CREATIVE EVALUATION OF UNEXPECTED EXPERIMENTAL FINDINGS
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2017
AuthorsKadayifci, H
JournalJournal of Baltic Science Education
Volume16
Issue3
Start Page414-428
PaginationContinuous
Date PublishedJune/2017
Type of ArticleOriginal article
ISSN1648-3898
ISBN NumberE-ISSN 2538-7138
Keywordscreativity barriers, laboratory work, students’ explanations, unexpected findings
Abstract

Science lecturers usually do not pay special attention to giving students the chance to evaluate persistent unexpected experimental findings that they cannot explain with their existing theories, propose alternative hypotheses and develop new theories in inquiry tasks at schools, despite the importance of these processes in scientific discoveries. Students’ reactions to this type of findings have been a subject for conceptual change studies that new theories were presented to explain the findings. This research, in contrast, examined students’ ways of interpreting their unexpected experimental findings about the molar mass of the sulfur element while hiding a new theory, and their barriers to discovering the scientific explanation of these findings, which is new to them, in the framework of the creativity paradigm. The research was conducted with 155 first-year undergraduate students who were enrolled in a chemistry laboratory course. A majority of the participants said that the unexpected findings might have resulted from experimental errors or methodical problems. Few students stated that these findings might be valid and have a new explanation. The barriers to students' discovery of new scientific explanation for findings were classified as: lack of pre-knowledge, obstacles of existing structures, failure of creative cognitive processes and social-personal blocks.

URLhttp://oaji.net/articles/2017/987-1497964307.pdf
DOI10.33225/jbse/17.16.414
Refereed DesignationRefereed
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