This study was to investigate the effective order of instruction for students learning the concepts of chemical change. Chemical change was considered as the important area in 8th grade chemistry part. The study consisted of 168 8th grade students, two classes of boys and girls each, from a middle school in Seoul. They were divided into two groups, the experimental group and the control group. The control group was taught in the order, which was presented in the science textbook; chemical change, atom, and molecule (CAM). For the experimental group, the order was molecule, atom, and chemical change (MAC). From the results of the study, there was a statistically significant difference between the control group and the experimental group. But the interviews indicated that the students were confused with the MAC method in spite of the effective learning. Therefore, for more effective concepts learning without a confusion, we need to provide our students with various learning sequences of science textbooks rather than fixed learning sequences.
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