This study discusses how textbook educational approaches concerning Le Châtelier's principle (LCP) may hinder student comprehension and prediction of chemical equilibrium disturbances. Firstly, after summarising students' LCP erroneous assertions/explanations, a categorisation of the potential barriers that may originate student misunderstandings…

The four representative models that define oxidation-reduction reactions are often used differently in different situations or contexts in chemistry textbooks. Although integrated models have been suggested to overcome the confusion caused by this, they have not been successful. We therefore aim to interpret the causes for difficulties in the…

Chemistry students encounter a variety of terms, definitions, and classification schemes that many instructors expect students to memorize and be able to use. This research investigated students' descriptions of ionic and covalent bonding beyond definitions in order to explore students' knowledge about chemical bonding. Using Johnstone's Multiple…

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in 19 preservice chemistry teachers' understandings of the structure of matter, including the aspects of the physical states of matter, the physical composition of matter, and the chemical composition of matter, before, immediately after, and months after they received a specific instruction.…

The students' performance in various types of problems dealing with the conservation of matter during chemical reactions has been investigated at different levels of schooling. The participants were 499 ninth grade (ages 14, 15 years) and 624 eleventh grade (ages 16, 17 years) Greek students. Data was collected using a written questionnaire…

This study involved the development of a two-tier diagnostic instrument to assess Thai high school students' understanding of acid-base chemistry. The acid-base diagnostic test (ABDT) comprising 18 items was administered to 55 Grade 11 students in a science and mathematics programme during the second semester of the 2008 academic year. Analysis of…

This paper reports on data collected via an audience response system, where a convenience sample of 300 adults aged 17-50 pressed a button to register their answers for twenty multiple choice questions. The responses were then discussed with the respondents at the time. The original dataset includes physics, biology and chemistry questions. The…

Particulate questions were used to investigate the strength of the mental association between the concept of compound and microscopic representations of molecules in students with different levels of chemistry preparation. The results have suggested that the mental association between the concepts of compound and particulate representations of…

Within the historical context of the development of chemistry, Avogadro's hypothesis represents a fundamental concept: It allowed Avogadro to explain Gay-Lussac's law of combining volumes and it allowed Cannizzaro to establish a more accurate set of atomic mass values. If students are going to understand the concept of relative atomic masses and…

States that the shift in meaning of the Periodic Table to represent regularities in the electron distribution in the shells of atoms can result in confusion between elements and atoms. (DDR)

The development of students' (n=80) conceptions of matter was investigated. Students' ideas about matter were examined by asking students to verbally explain what matter means and to classify items into matter and nonmatter. A major difficulty is indicated by students regarding the concept of matter. (KR)

Differentiates between chemical nomenclature and the common ways that substances are named and described. Students should learn the chemical nomenclature so that they will be more observant and objective. Cites examples of student misconceptions based upon their own imagination and logic. (TW)

Described in this study are student teachers' frameworks of purity and the related concepts of the states of matter. The concept of natural versus pure substances, classifying states of matter, and implications for teaching drawn from the results are discussed. (Author/KR)

The 9th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2016) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, in the USA. The conference, held June 29-July 2, 2016, follows the eight previous editions (Madrid 2015, London 2014, Memphis…

This article describes how workshop sessions have attempted to help teachers from one curriculum area develop their diagnostic skills to use in assessment for learning. The approach uses the metaphor of the teacher-as-learning-doctor to encourage teachers to think about the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of learning "bugs". The…