Gender Fair Efficacy of Concept Mapping Tests in Identifying Students' Difficulties in High School Organic Chemistry

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  • Author(s): Gafoor, Kunnathodi Abdul; Shilna, V.
  • Language:
    English
  • Source:
    Online Submission. 2014.
  • Publication Date:
    2014
  • Document Type:
    Speeches/Meeting Papers
    Reports - Research
  • Additional Information
    • Peer Reviewed:
      N
    • Source:
      10
    • Education Level:
      High Schools
      Secondary Education
    • Subject Terms:
      Sex Fairness; Gender Differences; Rural Areas; Organic Chemistry; Concept Mapping; Difficulty Level; Multiple Choice Tests; Science Tests; Comparative Analysis; Misconceptions; Testing; Foreign Countries; Test Format; Scores; Educational Practices; High School Students
    • Subject Terms:
      India
    • Abstract:
      In view of the perceived difficulty of organic chemistry unit for high schools students, this study examined the usefulness of concept mapping as a testing device to assess students' difficulty in the select areas. Since many tests used for identifying students misconceptions and difficulties in school subjects are observed to favour one or the other gender, this study examined efficacy of concept mapping as a gender fair test to appraise student difficulty in organic chemistry unit for high schools. Concept mapping is plotted against multiple-choice-item test, which is the commonly used objective test item format, and the true-false item test, which is advocated as efficient in finding out students misconceptions, to compare the usefulness of the first against the second and third in assessing student difficulties within organic chemistry in gender fair manner. The sample consisted of 117 tenth standard students from a rural government school in Kozhikode, Kerala. The test administration employed a counter-balanced design. This ensured that while all the students in the sample responded to all the three tests, one third of the study sample each answered the three tests first, second and third respectively. The first and second tests were considered pilot testing, such that the variation in score from the third test indicated the misconceptions than mere memory or guessing. The student performance, by gender, on the three test forms were compared using two-way ANOVA. The result indicated that concept mapping is at par with the true-false item format, in assessing student difficulties in organic chemistry in a gender fair manner, while the multiple choice item test scores favour girls, as is the customary case with the achievement scores in schools in Kerala. The findings highlight the need for developing improved formative test formats that could be used in accordance with fairer and inclusive schooling practices. (Contains 5 Tables and 1 Figure.)
    • Abstract:
      As Provided
    • Number of References:
      36
    • Publication Date:
      2014
    • Accession Number:
      ED545404