As detection and subsequent remediation of misconceptions developed within high-school organic chemistry courses in regard to various classes of organic compounds are a prerequisite for meaningful learning of more advanced organic chemistry content, this study sought to identify high-school students’ misconceptions about alcohols and carbonyl compounds by means of a four-tier test. The test items comprise the answer and reason tier in a multiple-choice question format, and the response to each tier is accompanied by a confidence rating provided on a six-point confidence scale. The test was administered to 154 students, and evidence of satisfactory validity and internal consistency of both the cognitive scores and confidence ratings was obtained. Since a correct response to a four-tier item presupposes that both the answer and the reason tier within which all the distracters originate from the previously detected challenges with the above-mentioned content are answered correctly, the mean score on the test was predictably low. At the same time, the confidence ratings associated with the students’ incorrect responses enabled a more accurate differentiation between wrong answers caused by the lack of knowledge and the existence of misconceptions, compared to all of the other types of diagnostic tests that were previously implemented for this purpose. The identification of eight misconceptions about alcohols and carbonyl compounds within this study paves the way for the development of remediation approaches that would neutralize the negative impact of these conceptual difficulties on the meaningful learning of all related organic chemistry content.

中文翻译：

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通过四级诊断测试识别高中生与醇和羰基化合物相关的概念挑战

由于检测和随后纠正高中有机化学课程中有关各类有机化合物的误解是有意义地学习更高级有机化学内容的先决条件，因此本研究旨在确定高中生对醇类和有机化合物的误解。羰基化合物的四级测试。测试项目包括多项选择题格式的答案和原因层，每个层的回答都附有以六点置信度表示的置信度评级。该测试对 154 名学生进行了测试，获得了认知分数和置信度评级的令人满意的有效性和内部一致性的证据。由于对四层项目的正确回答预设了答案和原因层（其中所有干扰因素源自先前检测到的具有上述内容的挑战）均得到正确回答，因此测试的平均分数可预见地较低。同时，与之前实施的所有其他类型的诊断测试相比，与学生的错误反应相关的置信度可以更准确地区分由于缺乏知识和存在误解而导致的错误答案。这个目的。本研究中识别出关于醇和羰基化合物的八种误解，为开发补救方法铺平了道路，该方法将抵消这些概念困难对所有相关有机化学内容的有意义学习的负面影响。