Use of Spectroscopic Representations in Student‐Generated Atomic Models

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to illustrate college students' levels of sophistication of their spectroscopic representations (SRs). For example, a photon is drawn as a wavy line, which might be used to enhance their atomic models (AMs). Study 1 was a quantitative study in which 70 students, enrolled in first semester general chemistry, drew or described their own model of the atom. Despite the fact that they had just completed a unit on atomic structure, only 30.6% of these students were classified as having a good understanding of the Bohr AM. Most of these students, 93.8%, incorporated SRs into their models. Conversely, only 41.2% of those who had a moderate AM understanding and only 5% of those with a poor AM understanding used SR in their AMs. Study 2 was a 245 ORDER REPRINTS qualitative study in which 10 volunteers, enrolled in the same course but during a different semester, interacted with a multimedia instructional package and with a tutor. Interviews with two students were selected for in-depth analyses. Each one enhanced their own AM by adding dynamic SR to their original AMs.

The Effect of Adjunct Questions Emphasizing the Particulate Nature of Matter on Students' Understanding of Chemical Concepts in Multimedia Lessons

“…Sanger (2000) used student drawings to show that successful students use better strategies than unsuccessful students when distinguishing elements, compounds, and mixtures in pictorial images. Suits and Hypolite (2004) reported that students can actually develop misconceptions from drawing static representations of dynamic processes, such as electron-photon interactions in atoms. Kelly and Jones (2007) found that students could draw correct representations of the particulate nature of matter after viewing animations of molecular behavior, without actually understanding what their pictures meant.…”