A Comparative Study of Misconceptions in the Subject of Chemistry among the Students of O-Level Curriculum of University of Cambridge UK and SSC Level, Pakistani National Curriculum 2006

Author(s) : Samia Rehman

Abstract:

The study was intended to identify and compare the misconceptions in the subject of Chemistry among the students of O-level and SSC. Researchers also seek to explain how student’s demographic and educational diversity effects to their conceptual understanding. The population was comprised of 16 schools of ICT (Islamabad Capital territory) offering O-level with Cambridge University’s curriculum and 34 public schools of ICT, offering Pakistani National curriculum (2006) for their SSC classes. Researcher selected 25% educational institutions as sample of the study through simple random sampling (02 boys +02 girls=04’ schools for O-Level, 05 boys +05 girl’s =10 schools for SSC). 100 % students these classes from selected schools were respondents of the study. Content based standardized instrument of TIMMS (2008), revalidated in local context, was used. The hypotheses were tested statistically by using T-test through SPSS. In the light of findings it was concluded that there is significant difference between in misconception of the learner of SSC&O-level regarding the all ten common content areas. It was also concluded that O-level students have less misconceptions in some content areas but the overall the comparison shows that SSC students have less misconception as compared to O-level students.

Keywords: Curriculum, Misconceptions, Chemistry, SSC, O-Level