Motivation is Important When They Learn Chemical Equilibrium with Computer-simulated Experimentation: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Chemical equilibrium is important and fundamental chemistry concept for studying advance chemistry topics. A numerous researches reported that students often hold alternative conceptions of science and encounter learning difficulty because of complexity and abstraction of scientific concepts. Researchers seek to discover effective way to assist students learning of science concepts meaningfully. This paper presents an examination of relationship between students’ motivation toward chemistry and their perceptions toward the chemistry learning of chemical equilibrium through interacting with a computer-simulated experimentation, called Chemical Equilibrium Simulation (CE-SIM). Thirty males and forty females 11th grade students participated in this study. The result of study indicated that intrinsic motivation was significantly correlated to all constructs of perception toward computer-simulated experimentation of chemical equilibrium. Based on this finding, science teachers should concern and consider students’ career motivation, self-determination, self-efficacy, and grade motivation before using CE-SIM in chemistry learning of chemical equilibrium. This implied that chemistry motivation is important for chemistry learning of chemical equilibrium through the use of computer- simulated experimentation.