Learning quantum chemistry via a visual-conceptual approach: students' bidirectional textual and visual understanding

Abstract

Most undergraduate chemistry courses and a few high school honors courses, which focus on physical chemistry and quantum mechanics, are highly mathematically-oriented. At the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, we developed a new module for high school students, titledChemistry – From “the Hole” to “the Whole”: From the Nanoscale to Microelectronics. The module is based on a qualitative approach to teaching quantum chemistry, emphasizing interdisciplinary real-life applications and integration of visualization. While aimed at honors high school chemistry students, the module was also partially implemented and assessed in an undergraduate chemistry course. The research objective was to investigate the effect of the module on the visual and textual understanding of quantum mechanical concepts among 122 honors and 65 volunteer undergraduate chemistry students. The research tools included students' pre- and post-questionnaires. High school honors and undergraduate students, who were exposed to the module, significantly improved their textual and visual understanding of quantum mechanical concepts and their ability to move across illustrations and explanations. Honors and undergraduate students minimized the gap that had existed between them in terms of integrating micro and quantum levels into their post-questionnaire answers. Our findings augment the current set of the four chemistry understanding levels – macro, micro, symbol and process – by adding the quantum mechanical level as a fifth level of chemistry understanding. The study contributes to teaching physical chemistry by providing a tool for learning, assessment, and research of chemistry understandingviaboth visual and textual modes.

Insights into teaching quantum mechanics in secondary and lower undergraduate education

“…The following section describes students learning difficulties related to the understanding of atomic structure, quantization, and spin, as found in the reviewed articles [12,24,25,31,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]].…”

“…No correlation was found between their levels of procedural and conceptual performance. To investigate the effect of a nonmathematical approach on student understanding of the atomic structure, Dangur, Avargil, Peskin, and Dori [54,82] developed a teaching module focusing on real-life applications and visualization. This module was used for 122 secondary students and 65 undergraduate students.…”

Features of representations in general chemistry textbooks: a peek through the lens of the cognitive load theory

“…The submicroscopic, or particulate level, involves particles such as atoms, molecules and ions. For example, Dori and Hameiri (2003) suggested a process level, Dangur et al (2014) suggested a quantum level which they defined as encompassing understanding of the relationship between quantum mechanics and the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and the solid state and Gkitzia et al (2011) proposed the existence of multiple, mixed and hybrid representations which are a combination of two or more of Johnstone's (1991) three levels of representation. Over the years, as the field of chemistry education has continued to grow, more levels or types of representation have been suggested.…”

Factors Affecting the Study of Chemistry in Different Countries Around the World: Findings from an International Survey

“…The physical chemistry module covers the interaction of light and matter and deals with electromagnetic radiation, the electronic excitation of mono atoms or ions, the absorption spectrum, atomic orbitals, light spectrum and colors, light absorption and scattering, the relationship between the structure and color of a molecule, the electronic structure of solids (conductors, semiconductors, and insulators), valence and conduction bands, doping, and LED (light emitting diode). [16] The biochemistry module relates to cell chemistry, the structure and function of phospholipids, amino acids, proteins, DNA and RNA structures, the transcription process, the translation process and the genetic code, as well as ribosomes and mutations. [14] The module, environmental chemistry, deals with the quality of drinking water, the properties of water, analytical methods used for identifying the concentration of different ions in water, spectroscopy as an analytical tool, purification processes, air quality, the cycle of carbon dioxide, and the greenhouse effect.…”