Abstract
M.Ed.
The education system in this country has undergone tremendous changes in the last
few years with the intention of transforming it into a competent education system that
can match and be equivalent to the global standards. In spite of all the changes, the
underperformance of learners and schools in the National Senior Certificate
examination, especially in the critical subjects such as mathematics and physical
sciences is a serious challenge to all stakeholders of education. The national pass
rate for physical science was 55% at national level and 64.5% at the Gauteng
Provincial level in the Grade 12, 2008 national examination.
The examination results published in the past three years reflects that there is no
significant improvement in the performance of learners in the physical sciences
examination. In view of the above it will be appropriate to explore new strategies and
ways to enable learners to achieve the desired outcomes at a higher level in physical
sciences.
The aim of this study is to investigate the conceptual understanding of chemical
representations by grade 12 learners. A quantitative research method was utilised to
determine the performance of Grade 12 learners in responding to questions at the
macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic levels of chemical representations. A
sample of five hundred randomly selected learner scripts from the 2008 National
Senior Certificate examination were used for the script analysis and data collection.
A second phase of qualitative research method was used to collect and analyse data
to describe how teachers facilitate learner conceptual understanding at the
macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic levels of chemical representation. Three
teachers from previously disadvantaged schools were selected to participate in this
research study. Interviews and class observations were conducted to collect data for
this phase of study.
The findings indicate that the grade 12 learners have a poor conceptual
understanding of macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic levels of chemical
representations. This lack of understanding is reflected in their poor performance in
answering questions in the NSC chemistry examination of 2008. Teachers have a
limited conception of the three levels of chemical representations and they lack
effective teaching strategies to facilitate the learning of concepts at the levels of
chemical representations. This poor facilitation of concepts by teachers at classroom
levels has a negative impact on the level of understanding by learners and hence,
they perform poor in the grade 12 NSC examination.
To improve the performance of grade 12 learners in the NSC examination it is
recommended that the Department of Basic Education initiate in-service courses for
physical sciences teachers in chemistry. This should be done with a view to
developing teacher knowledge and understanding of the levels of chemical
representation to enable them to more explicitly fashion strategies in facilitating the
learning of concepts at these levels.