Methodology
The present paper presents a detailed thematic review of
the context-based chemistry studies. To achieve this, we
employed a matrix earlier developed by C ¸ alik et al. (2005),
U¨
nal et al. (2006) and Kurnaz and C ¸ alik (2009) to sum-marize the findings by focusing on insights derived from
the related studies. The matrix incorporates the following
themes: needs, aims, methodologies, general knowledge
claims, and implications for teaching and learning, impli-cations for curriculum development and suggestions for
future research. The general knowledge claims investi-gated in this paper were: (a) positive effects of the context-based chemistry studies, and (b) caveats; both were
examined in terms of students’ attitudes and students’
understanding/cognition. Implications were investigated
for practice in context-based chemistry studies, for future
research in context-based chemistry studies, and for cur-riculum developers in context-based chemistry studies.
Using these categories, each context-based study and
related studies were described within a cell of the matrix.
Thus, general trends and the unique features of each study
were clearly apparent. The similarities and differences
were obvious. What follows is an interpretive account of
the context-based studies in chemistry education.