Exploring Cluster Changes in Students’ Knowledge Structures Throughout General Chemistry

Abstract

Chemistry is traditionally perceived as difficult to comprehend. Its mastery requires that a variety of concepts be linked to form an organized knowledge system. The connections need to be made not only between the concepts associated with the macroscopic level of the chemistry triplet but also between the submicroscopic and symbolic levels. Many factors influence a learner's success in bridging concepts between these levels. In this study, the aim was to identify and examine the changes in general chemistry students' knowledge structures by utilizing Word Association Tests. Although many studies have examined knowledge structures and aspects of the chemistry triplet, almost none has considered both at the same time. This study highlights the interconnectedness between the chemistry triplet and changing knowledge structures in overall student populations and in high-and low-achieving students. It provides insights on why students fail to understand chemistry and suggests ideas for future research as limiting factors were noted.

Facilitating Concept Map Analysis: Generating and Evaluating Representative General Chemistry Concept Maps with a Novel Use of Image J, Gephi, JPathfinder, and R

“…Moreover, observing the overall patterns of how each gender organizes each representational level of chemistry reveals similarities in the organization of their knowledge structures. These findings indicate that extended chemistry triplet could be added as a layer to bring depth to the analysis of chemistry concept maps (Gulacar et al, 2020).…”

“…The seventeen terms used in this study were classified using Becker's classification (2015) of each level based on inductive analysis, as well as the same classification schema determined by a group of chemistry professors and graduate and undergraduate students (Gulacar et al, 2019). Through this process, it has been found that chemistry terms can be classified with more than one representational level of chemistry (Gulacar et al, 2019(Gulacar et al, , 2020.…”

“…Knowledge structures with chemistry triplet of female (left) and male (right) students. Meaning of symbols: Pentagon-macroscopic, diamond-submicroscopic, square-symbolic, triangle-process 12 / 15 evaluate an overall group's understanding of topics and evolution of knowledge structures (Gulacar et al, 2020) without having to assess each concept map individually. As a result, researchers could more easily extrapolate findings and draw conclusions.…”

“…The representative maps generated in this study were used to identify patterns of how the overall group organizes the extended chemistry triplet in their knowledge structure. There are few studies that combine knowledge structures and the chemistry triplet (Gulacar et al, 2020;Yaman & Ayas, 2015). The synthesis of the extended chemistry triplet and representative maps generated in this study may help provide chemistry educators a more robust understanding of their students' chemistry knowledge.…”

“…Those that exhibit higher performance in chemistry have a greater ability to relate concepts with one another (Schreiber, 1991). Moreover, a student relating terms to more than one representational level may indicate a higher level of understanding of chemistry concepts and terms (Gulacar et al, 2020;Talanquer, 2011b). Table 2 is a list of all terms with their extended chemistry triplet classifications.…”