This article discusses the nature of implicit knowledge, something which is considered to be highly influential in learning. The notion of implicit knowledge is important in conceptualising studies exploring student thinking and learning in chemistry, and in considering how the results of such studies should be interpreted to inform teaching.…

Comparing the atom to a "tiny solar system" is a common teaching analogy, and the extent to which learners saw the systems as analogous was investigated. English upper secondary students were asked parallel questions about the physical interactions between the components of a simple atomic system and a simple solar system to investigate…

Much scholarship in chemical education draws upon the model of there being three "levels" at which the teaching and learning of chemistry operates, a notion which is often represented graphically in terms of a triangle with the apices labelled as macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic. This model was proposed by Johnstone who argued that…

In this paper, we report a case study of a 16-year-old Swedish upper secondary student's developing understanding of key concept areas studied in his upper secondary school chemistry course. This study illustrates how the thinking of an individual learner, Jesper, evolves over a school year in response to formal instruction in a particular…

The "Effecting Principled Improvement in STEM Education" ["epiSTEMe"] project undertook pedagogical research aimed at improving pupil engagement and learning in early secondary school physical science and mathematics. Using principles identified as effective in the research literature and drawing on a range of existing…

Chemical bonding is one of the key and basic concepts in chemistry. The learning of many of the concepts taught in chemistry, in both secondary schools as well as in the colleges, is dependent upon understanding fundamental ideas related to chemical bonding. Nevertheless, the concept is perceived by teachers, as well as by learners, as difficult,…

The present study contributes to the constructivist research programme (RP) into learning science by comparing patterns in responses from two groups of learners--senior high school students and pre-service teachers--in the same educational context (Singapore), to a diagnostic instrument relating to the topic of ionisation energies. This topic is…

Teaching about the nature of science is seen as a priority within science education, and has also been highlighted as a suitable context for challenging the most able ("gifted") learners at secondary school level. This article discusses a practical session designed to introduce the idea of physical (natural) laws. The session asks…

This paper reports evidence that learners commonly develop a notion of chemical stability that, whilst drawing upon ideas taught in the curriculum, is nevertheless inconsistent with basic scientific principles. A series of related small-scale studies show that many college-level students consider a chemical species with an octet structure, or a…

The idea that children develop their own alternative conceptions of mechanical principles that can interfere with their learning of school physics is well recognized, and not only within the physics education community. "Intuitive physics" is one of three domains of "folk" science commonly acknowledged--the others being folk biology and folk…

This article explores 11- to 16-year-old students' explanations for phenomena commonly studied in school chemistry from an inclusive cognitive resources or knowledge-in-pieces perspective that considers that student utterances may reflect the activation of knowledge elements at a range of levels of explicitness. We report 5 themes in student…

The present paper discusses the conceptual demands of an apparently straightforward task set to secondary-level students--completing chemical word equations with a single omitted term. Chemical equations are of considerable importance in chemistry, and school students are expected to learn to be able to write and interpret them. However, it is…

Two reasons are suggested for studying the degree of conceptual integration in student thinking. The linking of new material to existing knowledge is an important aspect of meaningful learning. It is also argued that conceptual coherence is a characteristic of scientific knowledge and a criterion used in evaluating new theories. Appreciating this…

Particle models of matter are widely recognised as being of fundamental importance in many branches of modern science, and particle ideas are commonly introduced and developed in the secondary school curriculum. However, research undertaken in a range of national contexts has identified significant learning difficulties in this topic, and suggests…

The results presented here derive from a longitudinal study of Swedish upper secondary science students' (16-19 years of age) developing understanding of key chemical concepts. The informants were 18 students from two different schools. The aim of the present study was to investigate the mental models of matter at the particulate level that…