We present the results of a qualitative
research study designed
to explore differences in the types of reasoning triggered by information
presented to chemistry students in two different formats. One group
of students was asked to analyze a sequence of images designed to
represent critical elements in the explanation of a target phenomenon.
Another group of students was asked to analyze an illustrated text
that introduced core concepts and ideas needed to understand the same
phenomenon. Our study revealed major differences but also important
similarities in student reasoning under the two conditions. Analyses
of images led to more descriptive and limited accounts of the phenomenon
than the analyses of text. However, these latter analyses often were
plagued by conceptual confusions. Mechanistic explanations built under
the two conditions frequently invoked a single causal factor as responsible
for the phenomenon. Probabilistic effects were consistently neglected
in these explanations.
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