Abstract:

Chemistry plays a significant role in high school science curricula worldwide. Practical laboratory work is integral to science education because it can nurture students’ science process skills and their understanding of the nature of science. In particular, high school chemistry commonly includes volumetric analysis (VA) in the curriculum because VA enables students to apply a quantitative analysis method to determine the concentration of an unknown solution. Allowing students to perform VA experiments can nurture students’ interest and enthusiasm in the understanding of chemistry. Meanwhile, students should possess adequate manipulative skills when performing VA experiments to achieve the expected learning outcomes. On the other hand, insufficient manipulative skills can be hazardous in VA experiments, as fatal consequences may result from improper handling of apparatus and chemicals. However, a systematic framework for developing students’ manipulative skills is lacking. Demonstrating a skill to students and then having them mechanically imitate it is ineffective, although it commonly happens in high school classrooms. This type of practice is inadequate due to the imbalance between declarative and procedural knowledge. In this connection, we reviewed the literature and developed a five-level hierarchy framework of manipulative skills for a teacher development project targeting pre-service chemistry teachers. In this presentation, I will explain how project participants’ manipulative skills related to VA can be progressively developed through the five-level hierarchy framework by developing their declarative and procedural knowledge. Furthermore, I will describe how a four-stage teacher development project enhances pre-service chemistry teachers’ competencies in teaching VA manipulative skills for secondary school practical laboratory work by utilising the framework.

Keywords:

Laboratory work, practical work, chemistry education, manipulative skills, volumetric analysis.