Comparing and addressing basic science misconceptions of low achieving students to high achieving students : a Ben Davis High School comparison of students in chemistry honors to students in integrated chemistry and physics

Abstract

The idea for this research paper came from discussions in the summer teacher workshops P 691 and P 696 with Professor James Watson. A discussion arose about the number of misconceptions that high school science students would have and whether or not high achieving students would have fewer misconceptions than low achieving students. This research project addresses that summer discussion.The research project has three phases. In phase one of the research project the average number of questions answered correctly in the honors classes will be compared to the average number of questions answered correctly in the integrated chemistry physics class. The second phase will be to compare the number of misconceptions remaining in each class after a week of addressing the misconceptions. The third phase will compare the number of misconceptions after five months in order to see if the new information replaced the old information.