Facilitating conceptual change on matter through constructivistic teaching

This study focuses on students\u27 conception and conceptual understanding on selected topics in College Chemistry using constructivistic teaching. It determines students\u27 learning approaches and students\u27 conception of mass, changes of states, and physical and chemical changes. This study involved one intact class of nursing students enrolled in Chemistry 101 in the second semester of SY 2003-2004 in Notre Dame University, Cotabato City. A 16-item Learning Approach Questionnaire, a 15-item multiple choice with open-ended part, and unstructured post-interview were utilized to gather data. The data were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. The findings of the study revealed that there were more meaningful learners in the class than the rote learners. Most of the students\u27 prior conceptions were alternative conceptions, which were scientifically incomplete or incorrect ideas in all the three topics. Prior to instruction, the students\u27 level of conceptual understanding were mostly on specific misconception in the Law of Conservation and in the Physical and Chemical Changes, and partial understanding with specific misconception level in the Changes of States. Significant main effect was observed on the three topics, students performed better in the changes of states, followed by the physical and chemical changes, then the Law of Conservation of Mass. Significant effect was also found on the two tests, students performed better in the posttest than in the pretest. Significant interaction existed between tests and topics. No significant difference existed on the conceptual understanding between meaningful learners and rote learners across topics prior to instruction, after instruction, and prior and after instruction. Meaningful learners performed equally as well as the rote learners in the tests, although meaningful learners had higher gain scores than the rote learners. Students had significant change on the two topics, changes of states, and physical and chemical changes but no significant change on the first topic. In the conceptual change results, on the average, 54.72% of the students had unchanged conception; 30.97% had changed for the better; and only 14.31% had changed for the worst. On the average, there were 76.91% of the students in the change for the better had semantic conceptual change; there is new organization of knowledge. Likewsise, there were 13.97% students who had theoretical conceptual change and 9.11% students who had extent of applicability. The post-interview showed that most of the meaningful learners had correct and coherent explanation of the scientific phenomena compared to the rote learners. From the findings, it could be concluded that the use of constructivistic teaching is effective to some extent in facilitating conceptual change in both learning approaches across topics