„Das mein ich ja – oder doch nicht?“ - Qualitative Analyse von Redebeiträgen von Lernenden im chemieunterrichtlichen Diskurs der Sekundarstufe I

Quality communication of learners has become a fundamental part of chemistry ed-ucation as the scientific language of chemistry is both a study goal and a study tool. Therefore, its acquisition inevitably leads to phrasing difficulties and misunderstand-ings. These challenges are even more evident when it comes to speech communi-cation.
The speech communication quality of learners in chemistry lessons is indeed con-cerning; in general, learners’ answers consist of fewer than three words. They con-tain neither adequate terminology nor is it possible to draw coherent conclusions about the chemistry content from them. Consequently, it is a clear desideratum of research to analyse the learners’ usage of both the scientific language of chemistry and the wording. In turn, improving speech communication skills among learners has potential to contribute to improved long-term learning performance, considering the fact that chemistry lessons contain a high amount of speech communication.
This doctoral thesis generates a survey of obstacles in the scientific language of chemistry. The research focuses on difficulties in speech communication of second-ary school chemistry learners. Little is known so far in this particular field of re-search. The current data has been acquired in two Austrian schools. Guided inter-views were conducted in five classes. A qualitative method has been applied for data acquisition.
Results indicate three major areas of concerns: unclear pronoun-antecedent agreement, problematic shifts between chemical concept levels according to Ma-haffy, and an ambiguous application of the term element.