Epistemological and Didactic Difficulties of Teaching Chemistry in Moroccan High Schools

Abstract

This article focuses on the difficulties faced by actors in the process of teaching and learning chemistry, in particular the concepts of redox and acid-base. As to methodology, two tests were developed to conduct two empirical studies. The first test to identify the conceptual difficulties encountered by these actors when teaching the concepts above. The second test examines the skills mobilized by in-service and preservice teachers at the training center to solve daily life situations involving knowledge covered in the high school program such as electronegativity, polarity of a chemical bond, oxidation state of a chemical element, Lewis structure, rules or laws allowing the prediction of a spontaneous transformation, microscopic modeling of a chemical transformation and the classification of the different ox/red pairs, based on standard potentials. The results of these two studies reveal that preservice and in-service teachers have epistemological deficiency related to the knowledge to be taught and are unable to mobilize the appropriate knowledge to solve practical chemistry problems. Consequently, they cannot mentor learners to acquire the skills assigned in the chemistry curriculum: in particular, solving the problems providing from real and daily life. Individual interviews allowed us to better explain the dysfunctions causing these difficulties.

Received: 4 February 2023 / Accepted: 20 April 2023 / Published: 5 May 2023