Students can be differentiated into groups during classroom activities also according to their abilities, academic achievements and interests. On the basis of these classifications students can be engaged in specific learning tasks. Different models can be formed according to students’ academic achievements, motivation for a specific subject, gender and also other variables that can influence classroom dynamics. Three predictive educational models developed by discriminant analysis are presented. It can be concluded that teachers should be aware that girls need more attention in chemistry learning especially than boys. Teachers should extrinsically motivate using macroscopic level of chemical concepts and put those concepts into the context for those students who are low achievers in physics and has low intrinsic motivation for learning chemistry. Teachers should also explicitly apply the ITLS model into their teaching presenting to the low motivated students for learning chemistry that the whole point of the chemistry learning is to develop mental models that present understanding of chemistry concepts on the phenomenological, interpretational and symbolic level.
COBISS.SI-ID: 9979465
The design and construction approach to chemistry-related activities for middle school students is regarded as an authentic science activity, unfortunately rarely practised in science classes in different countries all around the world. In this approach students were asked to design their own experiments and control variables, meaning that they were more likely to think as scientists. Students were presented with an experiment in which a very abundant and stable liquid foam was formed. Students’ motivation to learn chemistry was also measured using the questionnaire based on self-determination theory. The research findings revealed that students with higher achievement in chemistry are also highly extrinsically and intrinsically motivated for learning chemistry and have a higher academic self-concept.
COBISS.SI-ID: 9979721