Research On Differences In Representation Of Chemical Knowledge Between Expert-like Students And Novice-like Students

According to the new chemistry curriculum, the objective of instruction is to enhance scientific literacy of every student, which requires instructors to pay attention to the development of all students, particularly to those novice-like students. In the development of students, knowledge plays a very important role. The representational differences of chemical knowledge between expert-like students and novice-like students and their cause are carefully studied in this thesis. After that, some teaching measures to narrow the gap between these two kinds of students are put forward.In this paper, test, investigation and statistics are major research methods. There are three stages in the research. In the first stage, the possible differences in representation of chemical knowledge between expert-like students and novice-like students were analyzed through tests. In the second stage, their differences in the levels of knowledge representation and organization were studied. In the last stage, learning strategies which led to the differences of knowledge representation were studied through the technology of note making.Through the research some differences are found in the representation of chemical knowledge between these two kinds of students. The expert-like students accept knowledge more easily, represent it more precisely and grasp the key knowledge more quickly than novice-like students. They show great superiority to novice-like students as for the level of knowledge representation. They can understand the essence of knowledge from microcosmic perspectives, and represent it better. The two kinds of students show no significant differences in the organization of knowledge.Through the research, learning strategies are found relative to the differences of knowledge representation between the two kinds of students. The fact that expert-like students are much better than novice-like students in the depth of knowledge representation can be explained by the far higher level in using elaboration strategies of the former. While the similarities in using organizational strategies lead to similarities in the organization of knowledge.According to the research, teaching of effective learning strategies should be emphasized in order to help students form better knowledge representation. For novice-like students, elaboration strategies and organizational strategies are both important, and for expert-like students who can effectively use elaboration strategies, organization strategies are also necessary.