Levels of Concept Acquisition and Concept Maturation in Students of Chemistry

S ummary . Levels of concept acquisition in terms of attribute perception were examined for 20 different chemical concepts featuring in GCE O‐level school chemistry courses. The instrument used was a ‘concept perception’ test describing concept attributes in a hierarchical sequence ranging from a specific, concrete level to a generalised abstract level. This test was administered to 560 14 to 16‐year‐old secondary school pupils. Findings indicate that levels of concept acquisition change significantly from the concrete to the abstract description with the advancement of students from the third to the fifth form level, but the absolute level of the association of concept labels with their abstract interpretation is generally low even at the highest educational level examined. The adjustment from concrete to abstract attributes of chemical concepts appears strongly dependent on the length of concept maturation periods, but is not influenced by students' IQ levels.