A Survey On The Status Of Value Recognition In High School Chemistry And Teaching Suggestions

High school students’ perceptions of the value of chemistry directly influence their course selections in the college entrance examination,university major and professional career choices in the future.Using the unit of“iron and metallic material”in high school chemistry textbook as an example,this study included three sections: in the first section,the author interviewed eleven in-service chemistry teachers in Tianjin to investigate their understandings and strategies of integrating the notion of value in classroom activities;In the second section,the author collected survey data from three hundred and four students in a public high school to identify their understandings and perceptions of the value of chemistry within this unit.Finally,the author analyzed data and developed an instructional design which demonstrated specific pedagogy strategies of integrating the notion of value.Such work can provide insights about developing value-oriented curriculum design.Concrete conclusions are listed below:(1)Based on previous literature,the author hypothesized that the construct of the value of chemistry was divided into four dimensions: cognitive value,affective value,social value,and application value.Among them,high school teachers paid greatest attention to the cognitive value,followed by the application value and affective value,and finally the social value.(2)The factor analysis of survey data showed that four factors emerged: cognitive value,social and life value,career and major value,and problem-solving value.Among them,students’ perceptions of cognitive value were highest,followed by the social and life value.In contrast,students’ perceived problem-solving value was low and the career and major value was the lowest.(3)There were no significant gender differences among students’ perceived values of cognition,problem-solving and social life.However,male students had significantly higher scores of the career value than female students.(4)Students with high test scores had significantly higher means in the cognitive value,problem-solving value,and career choice value than students with low test scores.There were no significant group differences for the value of social and life.