Systematic Research On Structure Of Chemistry Classroom

Structure is the inherent attribute of the system, and it is also considered as the core component of the research on the system. As we know, classroom is extremely complicated, and the structure of classroom is considered as the basis for the existence and evolution of the classroom instruction system. David Ausubel once mentioned "The quality of the class depends on its reasonability of the structure". Thus, for the question "what is the classroom structure?", It appears to be a simple question but it is difficult for us to seek the consensus answer. Due to the limited systematic researches conducted on the classroom structure, especially for analyzing the classroom in the specific subject domain, there were no basic paradigm and validated conclusions in both empirical studies and theoretical studies. Therefore, this study focused on the exploration of classroom structure in chemistry, and aimed to address a series of research questions, such as "What is the structure of chemistry classroom","What’s the relationship between chemistry classroom structure and its instruction","Do different levels of chemistry classroom structure have their unique characteristics" We attempted to conduct theoretical study and empirical analysis on the chemistry classroom to answer the research questions and provided invaluable evidences for supporting our findings.This dissertation consists of four parts:Introduction, theoretical backgrounds, empirical study and conclusions:"Introduction" presented the limitations of chemistry teachers’understanding of classroom structure through focus-group interview; a literature review on the relevant studies of classroom structure at home and abroad was conducted to visualize the limitations on the research of classroom structure; finally, the author proposed the research content and methodology of this study.Chapter2,3,4,5are the theoretical sections. Chapter2explained the ontology questions of the instruction of chemistry; Employing system theory, Chapter3analyzed the characters of the instruction in chemistry classroom based on the knowledge of ontological view. In this chapter, an elaborated definition and relevant concepts of the chemistry classroom structure were summarized and provided; Chapter4constructed a theoretical model of the chemistry classroom structure with diachronic, synchronic and layering perspectives; According to the theoretical model, Chapter5built a research model to interpret the characteristics of chemistry classroom structure (referring to the procedures and analytical tools), which was a foundation of the empirical analysis section below.Chapter6,7,8are the empirical research sections, which aimed to address the research themes such as "the impact of chemistry classroom structure on the quality of the instruction","the commonality and difference among various levels of chemistry classroom structure" and "the crucial factors of the levels of chemistry classroom structure". Chapter6presented the research design of the empirical study, as well as proposed the purposes and methods. In this study,22typical lessons on element were adopted as exemplar cases via strict selection criteria; Chapter7produced an instrument for the evaluation of the chemistry classroom structure through analyzing and evaluating the classroom structure of three classes on element; then the authors conducted parallel evaluations of the quality of22classroom structure and instructions; the study indicated that there existed positive correlation relations between the levels of chemistry classroom structure and the quality of instruction. Meanwhile, that the key factors affecting the levels of classroom structure was found. Chapter8constructed an analytical framework based on the key factors affecting classroom structure, and conducted an in-depth comparison of commonality and differences of the three levels of typical chemistry lessons on element. The commonalities were found as follows:the proportion of different categories of knowledge in instructional content kept comparatively stable, macro and micro structures of knowledge was found to reflect the logical nature among "nature","structure" and "preparation"; Basic cognitive framework and the microscopic cognitive process were found to reflect the logical structure of knowledge. The differences were:the high level classroom structure has reasonable proportion of different categories of knowledge; its macro organizational clues and micro construction of knowledge were ideological and methodological, and had a clearly and orderly cognitive sequences, flexible micro cognitive process; the medium and low levels of classroom structure have higher proportion of core knowledge with more knowledge modulus, as well as few coherent relations among these knowledge modulus.There were no apparent relations between the cogintive topics, and with simplied micro-cognitive approach.The section of conclusions reviews and summarizes the research, and reflects upon the limitations and proposes the work in the future.This study is a foundational and systematic research on chemistry classroom structure. The author conducts a preliminary exploration on classroom structure from theoretical and methodological reviews, and draws important conclusions to shed the light for relevant researches. In the future, we will further expand the research domain of chemistry classroom structure to improve research methods and to verify unsolved problems.