Developing an Interactive Non-formal Chemistry Setting and Investigating Its Effectiveness on High School Students’ Attitudes towards Chemistry

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to design an interactive non-formal chemistry environment and investigate its effectiveness on high school students' attitudes towards chemistry. Besides that, it is tried to determine to what extent students correlate these concepts with daily life. 14 voluntary students (5 female, 9 male) from different levels participated to conduct the experimental study. The chemistry laboratory of a high school is reorganized for this study. 7 chemistry activities which are intriguing and relevant to daily life were selected from different sources. At first, the students were informed about the study and then Chemistry Attitude Scale was applied as pre-test. The study was completed in total of 3 days. At the end of each day, the students filled a worksheet about the activities carried out during that day. After the completion of activities, Chemistry Attitude Scale and Experience Determination Survey were applied to the students. Furthermore semi-structured interviews were conducted with one student from each level. As a result of this study, the attitudes of the students increased positively and they regarding the working environment as 'entertaining, different, experience, collective, enjoyable and interesting'. Furthermore, the students' levels of correlating chemistry concepts with daily life were determined to be 67.5% on average.