Analysis of students' misconceptions about physical and chemical changes at the lower secondary level

Abstract Misconceptions, i.e. students' erroneous ideas, represent a long-term problem in the teaching of science. Their existence has a negative impact on the process of acquiring scientific knowledge and prevents the creation of a correct conceptual framework. Students' alternative ideas prevent proper learning and understanding of phenomena. Students find concepts and phenomena in chemistry particularly difficult because they are hard to imagine and therefore understand abstract concepts. This study investigates misconceptions related to physical and chemical changes among students in grades 7 to 9 attending elementary schools where the language of instruction is either Slovak or Hungarian. Specifically, it aims to compare the occurrence and nature of these misconceptions between Slovak-speaking and Hungarian-speaking students, and to determine whether the language of instruction influences students' understanding of scientific concepts. The data collection instrument as a diagnostic test consisting of tasks of varying difficulty. The validity and reliability of the test were verified using Cronbach's alpha (average α = 0.915), which confirmed its reliability. Our research confirmed that students have certain misconceptions regardless of the educational language in a given school system. The results showed that students often do not recognize the difference between the concepts of characteristic and process, have problems with interpretation at the macroscopic and submicroscopic levels. These findings underscore the importance of targeted intervention, innovative teaching methods, and an emphasis on linking theoretical knowledge with practical examples. This study contributes to clarifying students' misconceptions and supports the improvement of chemistry instruction on the topic of physical and chemical change.