Misconceptions are the "the old, the bad, and the ugly" prior knowledge, ideas or conceptions that the learners have that hinder their further learning in science. Several types of misconceptions that undergraduate students hold about reaction coordinate diagrams (from here on we use the term "reaction coordinate diagrams" and…

Organic chemistry students struggle with understanding the energetics of chemical reactions. Reaction coordinate diagrams are one tool that is widely used in organic chemistry classrooms to assist students with visualizing and explaining the energy changes that take place throughout a reaction. Thirty-six students enrolled in organic chemistry II…

The goals of this study were (1) determine the prevalence of various features of representations in five general chemistry textbooks used in the United States, and (2) use cognitive load theory to draw implications of the various features of analyzed representations. We adapted the Graphical Analysis Protocol (GAP) (Slough et al., 2010) to look at…

Visual literacy, the ability to interpret and create external representations (ERs), is essential to success in biochemistry. Studies have been conducted that describe students' abilities to use and interpret specific types of ERs. However, a framework for describing ERs derived through a naturalistic inquiry of biochemistry classrooms has not…

We report the findings of a large-scale (n = 1,337) qualitative descriptive analysis of U.S. high schools students' particulate representations of a chemical reaction, specifically, the combustion of methane. Data were collected as part of an end of course exam. Student representations were coded into 17 distinct subcategories under one of five…