A study of teachers' and students' views of the upper secondary chemistry curriculum and students' understanding of introductory chemistry in the east Black-Sea region of Turkey

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the curriculum implementation in chemistry, with a view to influencing future policy on curriculum matters. The study specifically focused on teachers' and students' views of the current chemistry curriculum and the context in which it is taught, the effect of interpersonal relationships on students; achievement, the students' level of understanding of selected concepts in introductory chemistry, and the relationship between achievement and attitude, gender, first term chemistry mark(s), some home background factors and time spent on chemistry assignments. Three classrooms (A, B & C) with 126 students (the Observed Sample) from the first year of general lycee were the core of this case study. 47 teachers from the same region were also surveyed. 160 students from different levels of the general lycee (I, II & III) also served as an extended sample. To collect the data classroom observations, teacher and student questionnaires, formal and informal interviews, an attitude questionnaire, an achievement test, and students' first term chemistry marks were utilized. The results indicated that the most often practised teaching-learning methods in chemistry classrooms were lecturing, solving end of unit problems, question-answer, students composing own notes and dictation. The lack of teaching aids, classroom over-crowding, lack of chemicals and equipment, and the size of laboratories were the shortcomings most often encountered in the general lycees of the region. There was evidence from the results of classroom observations, student interviews and the student questionnaire that the classrooms were in some cases very authoritarian.