Undergraduate and graduate students' predictions and submicroscopic level explanations for the melting of four materials (salt, chalk, sugar, and butter), and for the mixing of these solutes in two solvents (water and cooking oil) were collected. Twenty-three undergraduate students and seven graduate students participated in the study, and data…

One of the more interesting areas of problem solving in chemistry attempts to answer the question, "What do students understand about the molecular level of chemistry?" This question is also implicit in the more traditional area of mathematical problem solving but in this paper, more focus is placed on devising ways to help students develop a…

Within high school chemistry the topic of acids, bases, and pH is particularly challenging because robust understanding of the topic depends heavily on the student possessing deep concepts of atoms, molecules, ions, and chemical reactions. Since knowledge is acquired and stored in a dynamic structure, it was investigated in this study how…