Early chemistry misconceptions: status and implications for science education in Ethiopia

Abstract

Misconceptions towards basic chemistry concepts have been identified at all level of chemistry education in recent studies. Such set of early misconceptions about very basic chemistry concepts were even found to be reflected by pre service and experienced in-service teachers. This implies that numerous set of chemical misconceptions kept cycling in the entire educational system. As a result, the entire science educational system is being blamed of producing learners with numerous misconceptions and low conceptual understanding. In fact, the alarmingly declining students’ performance in regional and national examination in Ethiopia (NOE, 2010), for example, could be an indicator of this situation. Moreover, such quality threatening issues are not getting fair stakeholders’ emphasis especially in Ethiopia. It was aimed, therefore, to discuss the status of early misconceptions and its implications.