Enhancing understanding of chemical equations for secondary school students with learning disabilities via computer programming

This research investigates the effectiveness of a targeted intervention program designed to mitigate learning disabilities (LDs) in understanding chemical equations among grade-12 students. A pre-test/post-test experimental design was employed to evaluate changes in students' abilities to write and comprehend chemical equations. The assessment involved analyzing the complexity of students' written responses to given chemical equations and their performance on a standardized chemical equations test (n=12). The findings revealed a significant reduction in the level of difficulty students experienced in writing chemical equations after the intervention, accompanied by a marked improvement in their mean scores on the chemical equations assessment. These results suggest that the intervention was effective in enhancing the chemical equation skills of students with LDs. Implications of these findings and their potential applications in chemistry education are discussed. Keywords: Science education; skill; special education; test; TRIZ