Interactive Courseware as an effective strategy to overcome misconceptions in Acid-base Chemistry

Many areas in chemistry are interconnected to one another, through which understanding of one area will lead to the comprehension of the other areas. Science, chemistry specifically is an observable field of study. As such, students gain experience in chemistry not only when taught in their classes by their teachers, but also by observations through interaction with their environment. If these experiences are not in line with the scientific truth about a certain concept, they turn to build misconceptions when the new experience is introduced to them. Acid-base chemistry is one of the areas of chemistry that was endowed with a lot of misconceptions. This study determines the conciseness and effectiveness of interactive courseware in overcoming misconceptions in learning acid-based chemistry. Most of the misconceptions generated were been intensified by the instructional strategies, teaching and learning materials used by the teachers. To overcome these misconceptions in acid-base chemistry, the study selected an effective teaching strategy using Needham five phases. It has also gone ahead to develop teaching and learning interactive courseware that will facilitate instructional delivery and overcome those areas of misconceptions in acid-base chemistry. A survey was developed and administered to in-service chemistry teachers of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and the Sokoto State University of Nigeria. The result obtained indicated that interactive courseware can be concise and effective in overcoming misconception in learning chemistry. It concluded that chemistry teachers should invest in developing courseware to facilitate an understanding of difficult concepts in the subject matter.