Enhancing undergraduate chemistry learning by helping students make connections among multiple graphical representations

Abstract

Multiple representations are ubiquitous in chemistry education. To benefit from multiple representations, students have to make connections between them. However, connection making is a difficult task for students. Prior research shows that supporting connection making enhances students' learning in math and science domains. Most prior research has focused on supporting one type of connection-making process: conceptually making sense of connections among representations. Yet, recent research suggests that a second type of connection-making process plays a role in students' learning: perceptual fluency in translating among representations. I hypothesized that combining support for both conceptual sense making of connections and for perceptual fluency in connection making leads to higher learning gains in general chemistry among undergraduate students. I tested this hypothesis in two experiments with altogetherN= 158 undergraduate students using an intelligent tutoring system for chemistry atomic structure and bonding. Results suggest that the combination of conceptual sense-making support and perceptual fluency-building support for connection making is effective for students with low prior knowledge, whereas students with high prior knowledge benefit most from receiving perceptual fluency-building support alone. This finding suggests that students' learning in chemistry can be enhanced if instruction provides support for connection making among multiple representations in a way that tailors to their specific learning needs.

How do Students Learn to See Concepts in Visualizations? Social Learning Mechanisms with Physical and Virtual Representations

“…It is not surprising that instructors play a critical role for student learning with physical representations because students have no other way of receiving feedback and assistance. However, the importance of instructors for virtual representations is surprising because the virtual representations were embedded in an educational technology specifically designed to support students in constructing concept-representation connections (and shown to be successful in doing so; Rau, 2015). This study suggests that instructor support is critically important even in a learning context in which students are often thought to be more independent because they receive considerable support from an educational technology.…”

“…Chem Tutor provides error-specific feedback and hints on demand, designed based on learner-centred studies. Chem Tutor leads to significant learning gains in chemistry knowledge and conceptual understanding of representations among college freshmen (Rau, 2015). While working with Chem Tutor, students could ask for help from an instructor who circulated the classroom.…”

“…Virtual representations were integrated into an educational technology for chemistry -Chem Tutor (Rau, 2015), a type of intelligent tutoring system that focuses on connection making between visual representations and domain-relevant concepts. To this end, Chem Tutor presents virtual representations on the computer screen (see Figure 1 e-h).…”

One Instructional Sequence Fits all? A Conceptual Analysis of the Applicability of Concreteness Fading in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology Education

“…Understanding the representations and the translations requires conceptual knowledge about the underlying concepts and the representations themselves. In addition, several researchers suggest that visual and spatial reasoning may play an important role in chemistry learning and therefore propose that comparing visual features of multiple representations may support students' learning (Kozma 2003;Rau 2015;Wu and Shah 2004). The perceptual learning literature indicates that experiences leading to expertise can be divided into discovery and fluency.…”

“…Experts have the skill of "just seeing" the relevant features of a representation (for an overview, see Chi and VanLehn 2012), including effortless noticing of connections between different representations. Rau (2015) suggests that training perceptual fluency through categorization tasks, referred to as the perceptual learning paradigm (Kellman et al 2010), facilitates the learning of chemistry. Indeed, students benefit from rapid categorization tasks that require them to match a Lewis structure with the corresponding electrostatic potential map (Rau 2015).…”