Abstract
The ability to solve chemical calculation tasks is a necessary presumption of further chemistry study. The goal of the research was to find out What knowledge and skills with respect to basic chemical calculations students with future aspirations in chemistry have at the beginning of their university education? The students (N = 220, 58% in chemistry teaching programmes) were given a set of 10 tasks.
They consisted of five basic chemical calculation types with each type represented in both a formula-based and a word-problem form. Against expectations, the results showed the students by far have not mastered the basic calculation types.
Whereas more than 75% succeeded in mass fraction and over 62% in molar concentration tasks, only over 15% students succeeded in pH and even less in calculations from chemical equations. The chemistry and chemistry education students' results were similar, so were the results of students at different universities.
The task-type proved to have a small effect (p < .05; r = .109 resp. .143) on the students' success in the mass fraction and concentration, but a medium effect (r = .337) for chemistry equations calculations in favour of the formula-based task. In addition, a thorough responses' analysis was performed to provide more insight into the reasons of the students' failure on the tasks.
Considering the importance of this skill in the study programs, the fact students did not master the calculations in their upper-secondary education needs to be considered in the corresponding university courses - mere exercise deepening seem ineffective at this point as many need to start over.