Use of Colored Sticks in Teaching Stoichiometry PreRequisite Concepts

Abstract

— Stoichiometry is an important topic in chemistry, yet it is one of the most difficult to learn with
understanding by students around the world, as evidenced by researches since the 80s up to the present. The
topic on stoichiometry requires students’ understanding of pre-requisite concepts like conservation of
matter, chemical symbol and chemical formula, chemical equation, the mole and limiting reagent. These
concepts are in themselves abstract which makes the study of stoichiometry more difficult aside from its
mathematical nature. The difficulty of learning stoichiometry is further compounded when the teacher lacks
the understanding in teaching stoichiometry along the three levels of representations – macro, sub-micro and
symbolic. Several teaching strategies had been found effective and one of them is the use of visual
analogues. The main purpose of the study was to design, develop, and evaluate the effectiveness of a
teaching episode in teaching stoichiometry pre-requisite concepts using colored sticks as visual analogues. It
was observed that the use of colored sticks analogue during the development phase and experimental phase
was effective in teaching stoichiometry pre-requisite concepts.