Applying Ausubel?s expository teaching to overcome misconceptions about chemical equilibrium

Concepts are units of abstract thought and difficult to be undestood by pupils. For further learning to occur, basic concepts should be understood by pupils effectively. For this reason, it?s very important to overcome students? misconceptions which are obstacles on the meaningful learning.The main purpose of this study is to handle according to Ausubel?s expository teaching chemical equilibrium which is one of the most important topics in chemistry that overcome students? misconceptions about this topic.In order to achieve this aim, experimental groups and control groups were randomly chosen among three different High Schools. Experimental groups instructed with expository teaching while control groups instructed with traditional teaching method. Before and after the study, boths groups were given chemical equilibrium misconception test (CEMT) and word association test(WAT). In addition to these, an interview was conducted over twelve students selected from each group. The collected datas were analaysed statistically and content analysis.As a result of this study indicated that the experimental groups statistically showed higher performance than control groups. The results of WAT showed that both experimental groups and control groups? prior knowledge widened to the large area that was not related to the topic but experimental groups produced more. responses in the post-test than control groups. In addition, analysis of interview showed that the experimental groups have less misconceptions on chemical equilibrium than the control groups.Key Words : Misconception, Chemistry Education, Expository Teaching, Chemical Equilibrium