When students reason during school science, they often refer to conceptions that are derived from out-of-school experiences and are poor proxies for science orthodoxy. However, for some areas of science, these conceptions represent only a proportion of students' full conceptual knowledge, for tacit understanding exists that is superior to the…

Details the development of a multidimensional problem analysis, classification, and authoring method used to improve student understanding of the mole concept. Includes the results of assessment of the studyware. Contains 46 references. (DDR)