A Survey Of The Status Quo Of Middle School Students' Chemical Hypothesis Ability

In recent years,the use of inquiry teaching is strongly advocated in of the new chemistry curriculum,for the development of inquiry teaching is beneficial to the development of students' thinking and intelligence level and to the enhancement of students' creative ability.According to the Standard of Chemistry Curriculum for Senior High School(Edition 2017),it is also emphasized on the cultivation of students' core literacy of chemistry,and a way to develop it is by scientific inquiry,the important link of which is conjecture and hypothesis.The level of students' hypothetical ability directly reflects their level of scientific inquiry ability.Therefore,it is of great significance to study students' hypothetical ability.Backgrounded in Chemistry,this paper attempts to obtain the data by questionnaire under the guidance of the relevant teaching theory.In the questionnaire,the students' ability of chemical hypothesis is tested by two items with good reliability and validity.On the other hand,the scale of students' chemical hypothesis ability is evaluated by PTA rating scale referred from the domestic and foreign literatures.A random survey was carried out among some middle school students from junior high school to senior high school in Chongqing.In addition,the method of interview was used as supplement for the questionnaire survey.A total of 476 questionnaires were collected,including 121 in the third year of junior high school,118 in senior one,122 in senior two,and 115 in senior three.Based on the results of the study,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)Students in high school have no idea of hypothesis.Most students think that hypothesis is the same assuppos.Therefore,the consciousness of hypothesis should be strengthened in teaching.Besides,most students cannot make assumptions according to the facts but based on experience.(2)in current teaching,teachers' ability to cultivate students' hypotheses is obviously weak.In chemistry inquiry activities,teachers rarely lead students to make assumptions and give reasons,and students' divergent thinking is not trained.However,the vast majority of students hope that teachers can do more inquiry activities in class,which can stimulate their enthusiasm for chemistry learning.(3)there was no significant difference in chemical hypotheses among middle school students in different grades.However,the results of multiple comparisons show that there is a significant difference in reasoning on their hypotheses and in making high-quality hypotheses between students in junior three and those in senior three,with the ability of chemical hypothesis in the latter better than that in the former as a whole.(4)there was no significant difference in the ability of chemical hypothesis between boys and girls in general,and had nothing to do with sex.However,as for the number of hypotheses,boys perform better than girls.(5)in the same grade,student's level of chemistry hypothesis ability of middle school students is related to their chemistry scores.In the same grade,the better the chemistry score is,In general,the better the chemistry score is,the higher student's chemistry hypothetical ability is,which is related to the level of students' mastery of knowledge and the level of intelligence.(6)After making an overall analysis,it is found the middle school students' ability of chemical hypothesis is generally poor.In particular,students need to improve their ability of reasoning the hypotheses and making high-quality hypotheses.Based on the investigation conclusion,the corresponding suggestions are put forward,which can provide some references for the cultivation and improvement of students' ability of chemical hypothesis in chemistry teaching.The main recommendations are as follows:(1)in chemistry teaching,teachers should seize the opportunity of cultivating students' hypothetical thinking and improve their hypothetical consciousness.(2)to guide and train students to put forward and test hypotheses correctly,and to improve the quality of hypotheses.(3)to develop students' ability of chemical hypothesis by means of experimental phenomena.(4)make teaching content active and interesting,and stimulate students' interest in chemistry study.(5)focus on strengthen the cultivation of teachers' inquiry teaching ability,and change the traditional teaching method.(6)carry out effective group activities for exploratory learning.At the end of the paper,reflection on the paper has been also made.