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RESEARCH ARTICLE H.P. Drummond and M. Selvaratnam, S. Afr. J. Chem., 2008, 61, 56–62, <http://journals.sabinet.co.za/sajchem/>. 56 Students’ Competence in Intellectual Strategies Needed for Solving Chemistry Problems Helen P. Drummond* and Mailoo Selvaratnam Department of Chemistry, North-West University (Mafikeng Campus), Private Bag X2046, Mmabatho 2735, South Africa. Received 25 July 2007, revised 15 May 2008, accepted 16 May 2008. ABSTRACT Many students’ difficulties in solving chemistry problems are due to lack of competence in a few widely applicable skills and strategies. The competence of 300 first year chemistry students at North-West University, South Africa, in four intellectual strategies (clarification and clear presentation of the problem; focussing on the goal and identifying a strategy for moving towards the goal; identification of the principles needed for solution; proceeding step by step) was investigated, over a period of four years, by comparing their performance in ‘standard’ questions and ‘hint’ questions. The ‘standard’ and the ‘hint’ questions were the same but the ‘hint’ questions, in addition, suggested the strategies which should be used to solve the problems. Performance in all test items was poor, but improved in the ‘hint’ questions. The results indicate that about 80 % of the students were unable to use the required strategies, and also that many students who have the competence to use the strategies did not recognize the necessity for doing so. The results also suggest negative attitudes and lack of self-confidence in problem solving. There is therefore a need for specific training of students in the use of intellectual strategies. This should be integrated with the learning of subject content. KEY WORDS Intellectual strategies, chemistry problem solving. 1. Introduction Problem solving is an important part of most science courses. Most students have difficulties with problem solving, and many of these difficulties are due to students not being sufficiently competent in a few widely applicable intellectual skills and strategies.1–3 Intellectual strategies are often interlinked with intellectual skills. Intellectual skills are specific cognitive operations that can be considered to be the ‘building blocks’ of thinking. They are the mental activities needed for the functioning of the other dimensions of thinking (metacognition, creative thinking, critical thinking, thinking strategies).4 Intellectual skills include focussing, information gathering, remembering, analysing, generating, integrating and evaluating. Intellectual strategies (or processes) can be defined as the plans of action intended to accomplish goals (such as problem solving). They generally involve a sequence of individual skills. Many intellectual skills are generally needed to perform a strategy. Different skills are used at various points in a strategy. Thus a problem solving strategy would require many skills. A systematic four year research study has been carried out5 to investigate, by carefully designed test items, the competence of first year university chemistry students in some of the intellectual strategies and skills that are important for learning chemistry effectively. This paper describes the results obtained concerning students’ competence in intellectual strategies. Results concerning their competence in intellectual skills will be described in a subsequent paper. Four types of intellectual strategies particularly important in solving chemistry problems are: A. clarification and clear presentation of the problem; * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: B. focussing on the goal and identifying a strategy for moving towards the goal; C. identification of the principles needed for solution; D. proceeding step by step. Clarification and clear presentation of the problem is an important initial strategy, often neglected by students.6,7 This would help decrease the load on working memory.8,9 Focussing on the goal helps distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information.10 Identification of laws and principles sharpens our reasoning and avoids errors,11 and proceeding step by step towards the goal would simplify problem solving.12 2. Method of Study It is difficult to investigate students’ competence in intellectual strategies because of the difficulty of isolating them from intellectual skills. A useful method for isolating and testing intellectual strategies has recently been suggested,10 and it involves the comparison of students’ performance in pairs of questions; in ‘standard’ questions and ‘hint’ questions. The standard and hint questions are the same, except for one difference. The hint question has a hint that suggests a strategy that should be used to solve the problem. The standard questions were given to the students in a test 1 question paper and the hint questions in a test 2 paper. The test 2 question paper was given immediately after collecting students’ answer scripts to the test 1 paper. Since the only difference between a standard and hint question is in the strategy stated in the hint, any improvement in student performance in the hint question may be attributed to the influence of the strategy used. This method of using standard and hint questions was used in the present study to investigate students’ competence in intellectual strategies. Since the main objective of the study was the identification of difficulties associated with strategies, two important criteria RESEARCH ARTICLE H.P. Drummond and M. Selvaratnam, S. Afr. J. Chem., 2008, 61, 56–62, <http://journals.sabinet.co.za/sajchem/>. must be satisfied in the test items. First, lack of knowledge of the required principles and concepts should not be the reason for any student’s difficulty. To help ensure this, the principles and concepts needed for the solutions of the test items were given, and some of the items even used everyday concepts, not specifically related to chemistry. For the same reason, the simplest possible test items were designed; items that needed only a few fundamental principles and concepts for their solutions. The second criterion that must be satisfied is that the test items should not be familiar ones for which students already know the methods for their solutions. It would be difficult for a test item to satisfy both these criteria for each and every student tested: ‘good’ students may have come across similar test items and ‘poor’ students may have difficulties with the principles and concepts needed for the solutions. 3. Subjects of the Study and Administration of the Tests Four groups of first year chemistry students at the University of North-West were tested between 1999 and 2001. All students were Tswana-speaking, and English was their second (or third) language. These students were selected for the study because they had recently passed the matriculation examination (the South African school-leaving and university entrance e (...truncated)