Abstract
An understanding of students’ external representations of their internal representations of matter is important for the further development of visual representations used as teaching tools. Therefore, we examined undergraduate students’ personal external representations of matter. Fourteen undergraduates enrolled in general chemistry courses were interviewed about their drawings of matter in the solid, liquid, and gas phases. Data indicated that students spontaneously drew four different types of representations. We have developed rubrics for our classifications of students’ representations based on their drawings. Implications of visual representations in teaching will also be discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Nakhleh, M.B., Samarapungavan, A.: Elementary School Children’s Beliefs about the Nature of Matter. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 36, 777–805 (1999)
Griffith, A.K., Preston, K.R.: Grade 12 Students Misconceptions Relating to Fundamental Characteristics of Atoms and Molecules. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 29, 611–628 (1992)
Williamson, V.M., Abraham, M.R.: The Effects of Computer Animation on the Particulate Mental Models of College Chemistry Students. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 32, 521–534 (1995)
Gilbert, J.K., Treagust, D.: Multiple Representations in Chemical Education. Springer, New York (2009)
Kozma, R., Russell, J.: Students Becoming Chemists: Developing Representational Competence. In: Gilbert, J.K. (ed.) Visualization in Science Education, pp. 121–145. Springer, Dordrecht (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Weller, J.K., Nakhleh, M.B. (2010). “The Molecules are Inside the Atoms”: Students’ Personal External Representations of Matter. In: Goel, A.K., Jamnik, M., Narayanan, N.H. (eds) Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Diagrams 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6170. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14600-8_49
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14600-8_49
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14599-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14600-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)