Undergraduate chemistry teacher trainees' understanding of chemical phenomena

Knowledge about periodic trends enables students to understand and explain chemical phenomena which they encounter in everyday life and in formal settings such as in chemical activities in school laboratories. The case of first year undergraduate students’ understanding of chemical phenomena was assessed through an interpretive study. The study revealed that almost half of Ghanaian students at the entry point of tertiary teacher education had several alternative conceptions about periodicity in general and chemical phenomena in particular. The highest alternative conception was found to be on the electronegativities within a group of atoms and how they changed as well as how they affected polarity.