IONIC-CONDUCTION AND ELECTRICAL NEUTRALITY IN OPERATING ELECTROCHEMICAL-CELLS - PRECOLLEGE AND COLLEGE-STUDENT INTERPRETATIONS

The analysis of student responses in these two areas of difficulty, that is, conduction in the electrolyte and electrical neutrality, indicate that the misconceptions relating to these two aspects are present among pupils in high school and also among students at the tertiary level. Traditional methods of instruction and some textbooks appear to cause or foster some of the misconceptions. This study indicates that it is necessary to alter the traditional methods of teaching electrochemistry if erroneous beliefs are to be replaced with scientific explanations. Qualitative interpretation is currently being ignored, and the emphasis is on manipulative skills. Teachers also should deal with misconceptions explicitly and spend time making specific mention of possible areas of confusion. In this way possibilities for misinterpreting events can be minimized. Aspects of conduction in the electrolyte, electrical neutrality, electrode processes and cell emf and current are complex and interwoven and cannot be understood in isolation from each other. An instructional strategy aimed at alleviating these misunderstandings should thus adopt an approach where the cell can be understood in its entirety. In the instructional strategy developed in this work, carefully written notes based on research findings on student misunderstandings were found indispensible in achieving this goal. The design of the teaching strategy and its evaluation will be reported in a subsequent paper.