Biochemistry students at the introductory level easily comprehend the importance of energy-yielding oxidation and reduction biochemical processes, but nevertheless, they fight with words "oxidation" and "reduction" (and with the corresponding adjectives, "oxidized" and "reduced") applied in biochemistry…

Resonance is a fundamental chemistry concept first introduced to students in General Chemistry I, reintroduced in Organic Chemistry I, and then utilized throughout other higher-level chemistry courses. A molecule or ion can be said to exhibit resonance when it can be represented by two or more chemical structures (i.e., Lewis structures) that…

Australia-wide consensus was reached on seven core concepts of physiology. The "movement of substances" core concept with the descriptor "the movement of substances (ions or molecules) is a fundamental process that occurs at all levels of organization in the organism" was unpacked by a team of three Australian physiology…

Across science disciplines, light is a common tool for measuring, characterizing, and catalysing molecules and molecular processes. Despite the ubiquity of light-based tools, little research has been done to investigate how students understand light and light-matter interactions (LMI). This topic is typically first introduced in first-year…

Molecular representations that show chemical bonding are ubiquitous in general and organic chemistry. These help in communicating chemistry concepts that are fundamental to understanding "how" and "why" molecules interact. The goal of this dissertation work is to offer an evidence-based report on the affordances and limitations…

Introductory chemistry textbooks often present valence bond (VB) theory as useful, but incorrect and inferior to molecular orbital (MO) theory, citing the electronic structure of O[subscript 2] and electron delocalization as evidence. Even texts that initially present the two theories on equal footing use language that biases students toward the…

The concept of delocalization (i.e., resonance) is fundamental concept in organic chemistry but essential learning outcomes (LOs) have not previously been proposed nor has there been an analysis of how resonance is taught, despite indications in the literature that students have many non-canonical ideas about the concepts. To address this deficit,…

Since visual representations play a particularly important role in the teaching and learning of chemistry, the exploration described in this article focuses on them. This is an explorative study of the qualitatively different ways that visual representations can be unpacked by Swedish upper secondary school chemistry teachers dealing with…

In common with many other countries, the Iranian science curriculum does not introduce primary children to atoms and molecules but instead leaves the teaching of these concepts until high school. This paper challenges this practice and describes the changes in elementary Iranian children's understanding of atoms and molecules following a 10-h…

One of the goals of science education is to help students make sense of the world around them. To that end, it is critical that students understand the central ideas in each discipline like, in chemistry, energy and interactions. These ideas are of particular importance because they are directly related to one another and are relevant across other…

This article focuses on the case study of the concept of covalent bonding for 10th grade pupils in France. On the basis of their conceptions and difficulties, didactical engineering has been established that should lead to an improvement in the understanding of this concept. After analyzing the pupils' difficulties, we reflected on the…

Chemistry as a discipline in general incorporates abstract concepts, which should be visualized through experiment- and application-oriented methods. It is a well-known fact in Turkey that chemistry class offered by simple and traditional methods cannot be understood by students at a satisfactory level. Such chemical subjects as atoms, molecules,…

Students always encounter difficulties in studying biochemical pathways. They are especially weak in understanding the relationships between metabolic pathways and their integration because these pathways are always taught one-by-one in class. In the past, various online resources have been developed to facilitate students' understanding toward…

The use of the valence-shell electron-pair repulsion (VSEPR) model is essential for understanding aspects of bonding, molecular dipoles, inorganic complex ions, isomerization and stereochemistry, the lock-and-key mechanism for enzyme activity, and many other ideas. This paper describes how different approaches can be used to help students learn…

This study was conducted to determine the differences in the conceptual understanding of 52 Turkish students who were taught with a scientific argumentation approach in grade 12 chemistry. The concept test was administered to the participants as a pre-test and post-test, and it contained two questions. The first had two sub-questions had two…