How Do Preservice Chemistry Teachers Rate Tasks Following the Construct of School-Related Content Knowledge in a Concept-Orientated Course on Organic Chemistry?

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a study on tasks following the construct of school-related content knowledge. We know from previous studies that such tasks were rated by the preservice chemistry teachers as important for their future profession. Those studies were conducted in a traditional course on organic chemistry which was organized around chemical families. Therefore, we used and evaluated the tasks again in a new course on organic chemistry which is organized around basic concepts in organic chemistry. The results of this evaluation show that the students rate the tasks equally well but use other arguments for their rating. They do not focus only on the content of the tasks and whether this content belongs to the school curriculum or not. The students of the conceptual course rated the content more often (95%) as important for their future profession compared with the students in the traditional course (57%). Both groups of students rated the importance of the nature of the task the same way.