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The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between concepts on chemical reaction rates and concepts on chemical equilibrium in high school students. The subjects of the investigation consisted of 120 third grade students attending high school in K city of Kyunggi province. For this study, questionnaire relevant to the subject of chemical reaction rates and chemical equilibrium was developed and the answers were analyzed. As a result of the study, a large percentage of high school students answered questions on reaction rates correctly, but only a small percentage of the students could give explanations. Many high school students answered questions on the rates of forward reactions correctly, but not the questions on the rates of reverse reactions. For the concepts on chemical equilibrium, many high school students gave correct answers when faced with equilibrium questions that only required the understanding of one side of the reaction. But the students could not answer the questions requiring understanding of both forward and reverse reactions as well. Overall, there was a little high correlation between concepts on chemical reaction rates and concepts on chemical equilibrium in high school students. Especially, high school students with little understanding of reverse reaction rates did not understand that chemical equilibrium is a dynamic equilibrium. Also, high school students with little understanding of the collision mechanism regarding chemical reaction rates did not understand the effect of concentration and catalyst factors on chemical equilibrium. And the correlation between concepts on chemical reaction rates and concepts on chemical equilibrium related to concentration and catalyst factors was low. In conclusion, the formation of scientific concepts on chemical reactions rates can decrease misconceptions on chemical equilibrium. Also the teaching-learning method limited to one side of a reaction can cause difficulty in forming the concepts on chemical dynamic equilibrium. Therefore, the development of a teaching-learning method which covers both the forward and reverse reactions can be effective in helping students form the concepts on chemical equilibrium.
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