An action research towards teaching acids and bases to grade 12 students through peer instruction

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of peer instruction method on teaching acids and bases to 12th grade students. In addition it is aimed to determine the effect of peer instruction on students' attitudes towards chemistry and in-class discussion, and to examine beliefs and attitudes of students to peer instruction after implementation. This study is designed as an action research and qualitative and quantitative methods were used together. In the quantitative section of the research one group pretest-posttest design was preferred. Sample of the study is 21 12th grade students from a private high school in Erzurum. During the investigation acids and bases chapter was covered by the researcher by following peer instruction method and implementation was completed in 5 weeks. Lesson plans were prepared by considering the common misconceptions in literature, and it was aimed to eliminate these misconceptions. Quantitative data were collected by acids and bases concept test, attitude scale towards chemistry, debater survey, conceptual questions, and qualitative data were collected by opinion scale towards the method, observation notes, and semi structured interviews. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the obtained data. The results showed that there is a remarkable increase in the academic achievement of the students after peer instruction implementation. Moreover the results obtained from acids and bases concept test and interviews indicated that peer instruction improved students' conceptual understanding, and also it is an effective method to eliminate misconceptions. At the end of the implementation it was determined that students' attitudes towards the method are positive and they found it useful. Although the data obtained from pretest-posttest scores of attitude scale towards chemistry and debater survey did not show a considerable statistical difference, observation and interview data indicated that students' attitudes towards chemistry and in-class discussion improved positively.