Remediating pre-service integrated science teachers' misconceptions about acid-base concepts using cognitive conflict instructional strategy

This study explored misconceptions prospective Integrated Science teachers’ hold about acid-base concepts and assessed the extent to which these misconceptions can be remediated using cognitive conflict instructional strategy. The framework for the study was hinged on conceptual change theory. One-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was employed for the study. Convenience sampling technique was utilised to obtain 55 participants for the study. A pre-test comprising 20 Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQ) and 5 short answer questions was used to explore participants’ misconceptions. The participants were taught using cognitive conflict instructional strategy for a period of 4 weeks. Afterwards, the same test (post-test) was administered to the participants to identify the differences in their academic achievements. The responses of the participants were analysed and catogorised into three levels of conceptions to establish their misconceptions. Analysis of pre-test results revealed that the pre-service Integrated Science teachers’ lacked content knowledge and had gross misconceptions about acid-base concepts with an average misconception level of 46.9%. However, a deliberate use of cognitive conflict teaching approach remediated their misconceptions by 36.2% to promote conceptual change. Statistically, there was a significant difference between the mean misconception levels of pre-service Integrated Science teachers’ in the pre and post-tests, t (54)=9.7, ρ=.00001. It is recommended that chemistry lecturers should identify students’ initial conceptions before teaching and remediate misconceptions about acid-base concepts using cognitive conflict instructional strategy