Preservice high school teachers’ ideas and knowledge of key concepts in chemistry: analysis of conceptual maps

Abstract The study of preservice teachers’ ideas and understanding of various aspects of chemistry is an important topic in chemistry education. In this work, the results of an activity performed with 71 preservice high school teachers in the framework of a training course for the national qualification in Italy are described and discussed. The activity consists of the building of hierarchic conceptual maps concerning the key concepts in chemistry starting from a provided list of 31 words. These maps were built by teachers during a collaborative activity; a collective discussion followed this cooperative work to discuss with future teachers the core concepts in chemistry and eventual misconceptions. The effectiveness of the conceptual maps and their main uses in teaching and learning chemistry were discussed with preservice teachers during the collective discussion. The analysis of conceptual maps and further collective discussion revealed several difficulties in explaining the connections among several key concepts in chemistry. Moreover, alternative ideas, for instance concerning the concepts of ‘compounds’ and ‘mixtures’, were observed among preservice teachers. The findings reported in the present paper are useful to reflect on some aspects of chemistry education and of the training of future high school teachers.