سید محمدحسن شریفیان

The present study was conducted in order to study the level of understanding of the first and second year student teachers in the chemistry education department of Farhangian University of East Azarbaijan about some basic concepts of thermodynamics and chemical kinetics and to extract the misunderstandings among them.

The statistical population of the research was student teachers in the field of chemistry education and the method of data collection was a researcher-made questionnaire containing a number of questions about the intended concepts, whose validity and reliability were checked and confirmed.

The results of the study showed that some students of this university have difficulty in understanding these concepts and have misunderstandings similar to the misunderstandings reported in scientific sources for secondary school students. It was found that the use of thermodynamic reasoning to solve kinetic problems, the inability to use one's knowledge to solve a certain problem, and the role of textbooks are among the causes of some misunderstandings among student teachers.

The general conclusion of the research showed that there should be enough vigilance about the possible misinterpretations of student teachers to reduce the possibility of misunderstanding. Introducing definitions along with showing applications on specific issues and discussing common misunderstandings is the suggestion of the current research to prevent students' misconceptions.

In the present study the understanding of chemsistry teacher students of chemistry education department of Farhangian University about some concepts of thermodynamics and chemical kinetics has been studied and their misconceptions extracted. The statistical population of the research is student teachers of chemistry education and the method of data collection is a researcher-made questionnaire containing several questions about the desired concepts. After confirming the validity of the questionnaire, the test was held in normal class conditions and without prior notice to the students. The results of the study showed that some students of this university have difficulty in understanding these concepts and have misunderstandings similar to those reported in literature for secondary school students. It was found that the use of thermodynamic reasoning to solve kinetic problems, the inability to use one's knowledge to solve certain problems, and the role of textbooks are causes of misunderstandings among student teachers. The results showed that there should be enough vigilance about the possible misinterpretations of student teachers to reduce the possibility of misunderstanding. Introducing definitions along with showing applications on specific problems and discussing common misunderstandings is the suggestion of the current research to prevent students' misconceptions.